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A  HANDBOOK   OF 
PUBLIC    SPEAKING 


BY 


JOHN  DOLMAN,  Jr. 


ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  ENGLISH  AND  PUBLIC  SPEAKING 
IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 


i 


NEW  YORK 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1922,    BY 
HABCOURT,    BRACE    AND    COMPANY,    INC. 


PRINTED    IN   THE    U'S'A 


I  — 
CO 

art 


kO 


PREFACE 

THE  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  furnish  the 
student  of  public  speaking  with  a  con- 
cise statement  of  the  principles  he  ought  to  know, 
together  with  a  few  hints  as  to  method.  It  is  in- 
tended to  be  used  in  conjunction  with  platform 
practice,  preferably  under  the  critical  guidance  of 
a  teacher;  for  that  reason  it  is  not  in  the  form  of 
graded  exercises  and  assignments,  but  in  the  form 
of  a  series  of  collateral  lectures,  each  covering 
some  fundamental  lesson  which  the  student  can 
well  afford  to  learn  from  the  wisdom  and  experi- 
ence of  others.    No  subject  has  been  covered  ex- 

'^   haustively,  as  the  size  of  the  book  will  show;  and 

'^  in  most  cases  I  have  purposely  tried  to  stop  at  the 
point  of  greatest  interest,  leaving  plenty  of  room 
for  further  inquiry  on  the  part  of  the  student,  and 
for  supplementary  comment  by  the  teacher. 

■V  The  book  is  confined  to  public  speaking,  which 
>i  to  me  means  the  communication  of  one's  own 

^  thoughts  to  an  audience,  in  one's  own  words  and 
personality.     It  is  not  concerned  with  declama- 


f^OOKjJfOt  I 


vi  PREFACE 

tion,    the   oral   interpretation    of   literature,    or 
dramatics. 

I  lay  no  claim  whatever  to  originality.  I  have 
merely  restated  in  convenient  form  —  sometimes 
using-  the  teacher's  privilege  of  over-statement  — 
a  few  fundamental  truths  most  of  which  were  old 
when  Aristotle  and  his  contemporaries  stated 
them,  and  most  of  which  have  been  restated  many 
times.  My  only  excuse  is  that  no  available  book 
with  which  I  am  familiar  presents  these  truths 
briefly  enough  and  simply  enough  for  the  needs 
of  the  masses  of  college  students  who  have  time 
for  only  one  general  course  in  public  speaking; 
the  available  books  seem  too  large,  or  too  techni- 
cal, or  too  expensive,  or  too  far  above  the  earth. 
Whatever  may  be  the  faults  of  this  one,  I  can 
positively  guarantee  that  every  problem  discussed 
is  real,  every  principle  of  daily  application,  every 
suggestion  one  that  has  been  found  to  work  in 
practice. 

I  gratefully  acknowledge  much  indebtedness  to 
current  books  on  various  phases  of  public  speak- 
ing work,  particularly  to  those  of  A.  E.  Phillips 
on  "  Effective  Speaking  "  and  J.  A.  Winans  on 
"  Public  Speaking  "  ;  also  to  the  personal  influ- 
ence of  Professor  Winans  and  many  other  con- 


PREFACE  vii 

genial  friends  in  the  Eastern  Public  Speaking 
Conference  and  the  National  Association  of 
Teachers  of  Speech.  To  my  colleague,  Mr.  Reese 
James,  I  am  especially  indebted  for  a  careful 
reading  of  the  manuscript  and  many  helpful 
suggestions. 

The  student  will  bear  with  me,  I  hope,  for  talk- 
ing to  him  like  a  Dutch  uncle  in  certain  chapters, 
and  for  resorting  in  others  to  the  unpedagogical 
practice  of  talking  about  him,  behind  his  back,  in 
a  loud  voice,  for  the  purpose  of  being  overheard. 
A  more  impersonal  tone  might  have  been  less  dis- 
turbing; but  most  students  of  public  speaking 
need  to  be  disturbed.  And  after  all,  public  speak- 
ing is  personal. 

J.  D.  Jr. 

UNivERsrrY  OF  Pennsylvania, 
July  14,  1922. 


/ 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Nature  of  Public  Speaking 3 

II.  Mental  Relationships  in  Public  Speaking  .    .        8 

III.  Purpose  in  Public  Speaking 14 

IV.  Motivation 22 

V.  Attention      30 

VI.  Concreteness 38 

VII.  Reinforcement 45 

VIII.    Persuasion 53  - 

IX.  Argumentation 61' 

X.   Drift 70 

XI.  Humor 75 

XII.  Vocabulary 87 

XIII.  Voice 97 

XIV.  Action 110 

XV.  Methods  of  Preparation 117 

Appendix  A 129 

Appendix  B 142 

Appendix  C 156 


iz 


A   HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC 
SPEAKING 


Chapter  I 
THE   NATURE    OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

A  GENERATION  ago  it  was  customary  to 
,  regard  public  speaking  as  an  Art  —  mean- 
ing a  Fine  Art  —  in  common  with  acting,  interpre- 
tative reading,  and  elocution;  and  to  confuse  the 
teaching  of  it  with  the  teaching  of  those  subjects. 
To  that  fundamental  misconception  may  be  at- 
tributed much  of  the  artificiality,  insincerity,  and 
bombast  that  have  made  the  very  words  "  elo- 
cution "  and  "  oratory "  a  terror  to  persons  of 
good  taste. 

An  Art  may  be  broadly  defined  as  a  human  ac- 
tivity. It  differs  from  a  science  in  that  it  is  con- 
cerned with  doing,  while  a  science  is  concerned 
with  knowing. 

But  human  activities  have  many  purposes,  so 
that  there  are  many  different  arts,  and  many  pos- 
sible classifications  of  those  arts.  The  most  com- 
mon classification  is  that  which  divides  the  Fine 
Arts  from  the  Useful  Arts  —  the  arts  which  aim 
to  give  aesthetic  pleasure  from  those  which  aim 

3 


4    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

to  accomplish  a  more  material  end.  This  division 
is  frequently  misunderstood,  because  anything 
so  deep  and  fundamental  as  a  distinction  of  pur- 
pose is  too  much  for  the  average  mind;  but  the 
terms,  of  course,  persist,  as  terms  always  do ;  and 
activities  get  to  be  classified  with  one  group  or  the 
other  not  because  of  purpose  but  because  of  some 
accidental  similarity  of  tools  or  methods. 

An  art  is  not  a  Fine  Art  unless  its  purpose  is 
first  and  foremost  to  give  pleasure;  to  give,  more- 
over, a  certain  kind  of  pleasure,  namely  aesthetic 
pleasure  —  pleasure  derived  from  the  sense  of 
beauty;  and  to  give  it,  finally,  by  means  of  an 
imitation  or  representation  of  life  in  terms  of 
artistic  convention. 

Thus  painting  is  a  Fine  Art,  aiming  to  give 
aesthetic  pleasure  by  imitating  life  in  terms  of 
colors  on  a  two-dimensioned  surface.  Sculpture 
is  a  Fine  Art,  aiming  to  give  aesthetic  pleasure  by 
imitating  life  in  terms  of  clay  or  marble,  with 
three  dimensions,  but  without  color.  Music  is  a 
Fine  Art,  aiming  to  give  aesthetic  pleasure  by 
imitating  or  representing  life  in  terms  of  highly 
conventionalized  sounds.  But  ditch-digging  and 
blacksmithing  are  in  this  sense  not  Fine  Arts,  and 
neither  is  watchmaking,  although  the  latter  is  a 


NATURE   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING        5 

very  fine  art  in  point  of  quality  and  of  skill 
required. 

In  the  same  way  we  see  that  acting  is  a  Fine 
Art,  aiming  to  give  aesthetic  pleasure  by  a  con- 
ventionalized representation  of  life ;  so  likewise  is 
interpretative  reading,  which  combines  the  crea- 
tive art  of  the  writer  with  the  suggestive  art  of  the 
reader  in  order  that  the  audience  may  experience 
aesthetic  pleasure.  Music,  painting,  sculpture, 
poetry,  acting,  interpretative  reading  —  each  of 
these  is  like  life,  but  is  not  life,  and  is  considered 
best  when  it  is  not  too  much  like  life ;  and  this  is 
true  of  all  the  Fine  Arts. 

But  in  public  speaking  we  have  something  very 
different.  We  have,  not  a  conventionalized  imi- 
tation of  life,  but  life  itself,  a  natural  function  of 
life,  a  real  human  being  in  real  communication 
with  his  fellows;  and  it  is  best  when  it  is  most 
real.  We  have  an  activity,  and  therefore  if  you 
like,  an  art;  but  a  Useful  Art,  not  a  Fine  Art. 
Fine  it  may  be  in  some  respects,  like  watch-mak- 
ing or  diplomacy  —  for  the  Useful  Arts  may  be 
fine  and  the  Fine  Arts  may  be  useful  —  but  a 
Fine  Art,  like  music,  painting,  or  acting,  it  posi- 
tively is  not. 

All  of  this  is  perfectly  simple  and  obvious, 


6    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

which  is  why  I  set  it  down,  for  in  our  present 
chaotic  state  of  education  it  is  precisely  the 
simple  and  obvious  things  that  students  do  not 
seem  to  grasp.  I  know  from  daily  experience  that 
there  is  much  confusion  of  mind  concerning  the 
nature  of  public  speaking;  and  those  unfortu- 
nates who  as  little  children  were  made  to  "  speak 
pieces  "  in  Sunday  school,  and  a  little  later  to  re- 
cite before  the  high  school  at  assembly  some  gem 
from  "  One  Hundred  Choice  Selections  "  under  the 
impression  that  that  agonizing  performance  con- 
stituted public  speaking  —  those  people,  I  say, 
will  be  doing  very  well  indeed  if  they  can  get  into 
their  poor  muddled  heads  a  rational  notion  of 
what  public  speaking  really  is. 

I  know  a  man  who  can  not.  He  is  a  successful 
business  executive,  forty-five  years  of  age,  tre- 
mendously capable,  with  a  brain  full  of  ideas,  an 
engaging  personality,  a  good  voice  and  manner, 
and  a  perfect  command  of  his  tongue — in  private. 
He  can  talk  fluently  and  powerfully  to  two  or 
three  or  a  half  dozen  serious-minded  men  sitting 
about  a  directors'  table,  and  carry  his  point.  But 
ask  him  to  appear  in  public  and  "  make  a  speech  " 
(using  those  words)  and  he  suddenly  becomes 
idiotically  self-conscious. 


NATURE    OF   PUBLIC    SPEAKING        7 

"  Oh,  I  can't  make  a  speech,"  he  says,  giggling 
foohshly.     "  You  mustn't  ask  me,  really." 

And  if  you  are  wise  you  won't,  for  the  truth  is 
he  can't.  The  reason  is  that  he  thinks  public 
speaking  is  an  Art  —  a  thing  like  music  or  sculp- 
ture, that  calls  for  a  special  gift,  years  of  drill,  a 
masterly  technique,  an  artistic  soul;  a  thing  es- 
sentially artificial,  mysteriously  unreal,  only  to 
be  successfully  performed  by  a  temperamental 
genius  —  a  talker  rather  than  a  doer.  In  short 
he  thinks  of  public  speaking  as  an  abnormal,  not 
a  normal,  thing.    No  wonder  it  scares  him. 

Will  he  get  over  it?  Probably  not.  At  his  age 
muddle-headedness  tends  to  freeze  up  and  be- 
come permanent;  the  more  a  man  learns  the 
harder  it  is  for  him  to  discern  through  the  mists 
of  knowledge  the  simple  truths  and  basic  distinc- 
tions that  he  has  missed. 

But  young  men,  and  women,  may  profit  by  his 
example,  and  to  them  I  dedicate  these  remarks. 


Chapter  II 

MENTAL   RELATIONSHIPS   IN   PUBLIC 

SPEAKING 

WHEN  I  ask  a  student  speaker  what  his 
purpose  is,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he 
answers:  "  To  tell  about  Lincoln  "  (or  "  the  war," 
or  "  the  tariff,"  or  whatever  his  subject  happens 
to  be).  He  does  not  say,  "To  tell  you  about 
Lincoln,"  or  "  To  tell  them  about  Lincoln."  He 
uses  the  transitive  verb  "  tell "  without  a  direct 
object. 

He  does  this  because  he  is  not  thinking  about 
his  audience  at  all;  he  is  thinking  about  himself 
and  his  subject  matter,  and  how  to  get  it  off  his 
chest.  He  can  do  this  while  staring  at  the  ceiling, 
or  the  wall,  or  out  of  the  window,  and  he  can  do 
it  just  as  well  —  perhaps  better  —  when  no  audi- 
ence is  present. 

This  is  not  public  speaking.  Nobody  can  pos- 
sibly speak  well  when  he  thinks  of  himself  and  his 
subject    and    ignores    his    audience.      He    may 

8 


MENTAL   RELATIONSHIPS  9 

imagine  he  is  speaking  well;  he  may  be  express- 
ing himself  beautifully.  But  beautiful  self-ex- 
pression is  not  the  thing,  unless  one's  stenographer 
be  his  sole  audience  —  and  I  know  some  people 
who  can  put  even  their  stenographers  to  sleep. 
Not  power  to  express  one's  self,  but  power  to  im- 
press one's  audience  is  the  measure  of  effective- 
ness in  a  public  speaker. 

Good  speaking,  whether  public  or  private,  is 
communication.  The  word  means  the  act  of  shar- 
ing something  with  others;  it  comes  from  the 
Latin  con  (with)  and  munus  (a  business),  through 
communis  (common)  and  communico  (to  confer 
or  consult  with  one  another) .  In  English  we  add 
another  "  with,"  and  say  that  a  speaker  com- 
municates with  his  audience.  This  double  in- 
sistence on  the  "  with  "  should  serve  to  remind 
the  student  of  the  common  or  reciprocal  nature  of 
the  act  involved  in  communication ;  but  of  course 
it  doesn't,  because  in  these  days  of  unassociative 
fact  education  and  abolition  of  "  useless  "  studies 
like  Latin,  nothing  ever  reminds  a  student  of 
anything. 

In  order  to  understand  this  reciprocal  quality 
the  student  should  think  of  what  happens  when 
two  persons  converse.  Both  are  parties  to  the  con- 


10    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

versation ;  neither  is  passive ;  each  gives  his  active 
attention  to  the  other,  and  experiences  a  sense  of 
direct  mental  contact  with  him;  and  there  is  a 
spirit  of  give  and  take  that  is  by  no  means  lost 
when  one  person  happens  to  have  a  little  more 
to  say  than  the  other. 

We  are  all  accustomed  to  conversing  in  this 
manner,  and  most  of  us  do  it  without  discomfort 
and  with  reasonable  effectiveness  every  day.  We 
find  it  just  as  easy  to  talk  to  two  or  three,  or  a 
half  dozen,  so  long  as  the  atmosphere  is  that  of 
private  conversation;  but  the  moment  somebody 
says  "  public  speaking  "  we  go  all  to  pieces,  as  if 
the  situation  had  suddenly  become  different  and 
quite  unfamiliar.  This  is  the  heart  of  the  prob- 
lem, and  the  student  who  would  speak  effectively 
must  positively  learn  that  the  essential  mental 
relationship  between  the  speaker  and  his  audi- 
ence is  always  the  same,  no  matter  how  large 
or  small  the  audience,  or  how  formal  or  informal 
the  occasion. 

I  have  not  said,  of  course,  that  the  speaker's 
manner  is  always  the  same,  or  that  it  should  be. 
Obviously  it  should  not.  It  should  vary  to  suit 
the  situation  and  circumstances.  Necessity  and 
good  taste  will  dictate  appropriate  modifications 


MENTAL    RELATIONSHIPS  11 

of  posture,  gesture,  voice,  vocabulary,  phrase- 
ology, and  force.  But  these  modifications  are 
quantitative  rather  than  qualitative ;  they  merely 
alter  the  scale  of  the  speech  in  proportion  to  the 
formality  of  the  occasion.  Just  how  large  an  audi- 
ence calls  for  a  really  public  style  is  a  matter  of 
opinion;  one  speaker  of  my  acquaintance  says 
that  to  him  thirty  people  constitute  an  audience  ; 
another  says  twenty,  and  another  twelve.  In 
any  case  circumstances  will  alter  the  number;  one 
might  speak  more  formally  to  six  people  at  one 
time  than  to  sixty  at  another. 

The  earnest  student  will  find  much  to  occupy 
him  in  the  study  of  these  modifications  of  style, 
but  his  time  will  be  wasted  if  he  does  not  first 
grasp  the  fact  that  public  speaking  is  simply  ex- 
panded conversation ;  that  the  difference  between 
public  and  private  speaking  is  a  difference  of  de- 
gree only  —  a  difference  without  a  distinction ; 
that  in  all  speaking,  public  or  private,  the  true  re- 
lationship of  speaker  to  audience  is  the  same. 

The  relationship  must  be  direct,  reciprocal,  and 
sincere. 

It  must  be  direct  in  the  sense  that  there  must 
be  no  barrier  of  distance  or  remoteness  between 
speaker  and  audience;  there  must  be  no  dreamy 


12    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

look  on  the  speaker's  face,  no  far-away  tone  in 
his  voice;  he  must  be  mentally  in  contact  with 
his  audience. 

It  must  be  reciprocal  in  the  sense  that  there 
must  be  response  from  the  audience,  expected  and 
given,  not  necessarily  in  words,  or  even  in  laughter 
or  applause;  perhaps  only  in  active  attention  and 
understanding;  but  nevertheless  response.  The 
speaker  must  be  continually  anticipating  and 
answering  the  unspoken  question,  or  meeting  the 
unspoken  objection. 

It  must  be  sincere,  not  merely  in  the  moral 
but  in  the  intellectual  sense.  It  is  not  enough 
that  the  speaker  shall  have  an  honest  purpose; 
he  must  be  natural  and  genuine;  his  intellectual 
processes  must  be  real  and  spontaneous,  no  mat- 
ter how  well  prepared,  and  he  must  be  free  of 
artificiality  or  pretense.  Only  thus  can  he  avoid 
setting  up  barriers  between  himself  and  his  audi- 
ence, destroying  their  attention  and  stimulating 
in  himself  the  very  "  nervousness  "  he  is  so  anxious 
to  allay. 

That  so-called  "  nervousness  "  is  after  all  the 
chief  problem  with  most  students  of  public  speak- 
ing. I  have  hardly  ever  met  a  student  who  did 
not  assert  that  his  object  in  taking  the  public 


MENTAL   RELATIONSHIPS  13 

speaking  course  was  "  to  overcome  nervousness." 
It  seems  to  him  that  that  is  all  there  is  to  public 
speaking. 

"  I'd  be  all  right,"  he  says,  "  if  I  could  only  get 
over  my  nervousness.  I  know  what  I  want  to 
say,  but  when  I  get  up  there  on  the  platform  I 
get  all  confused;  I  can't  think  on  my  feet,  and  I 
can't  say  what  I  want  to  say  at  all.  How  can  I 
overcome  that?  " 

My  answer  is  that  practice  will  tend  to  cure 
the  ailment,  but  only  with  the  aid  of  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  nature  of  public  speaking,  and  of 
the  mental  relationship  between  speaker  and 
audience. 


Chapter   III 
PURPOSE   IN  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

A  CERTAIN  type  of  student  speaker  is  like 
the  man  in  the  old  song  with  the  blithe 
refrain :  "  I  don't  know  where  I'm  going,  but  I'm 
on  my  way."  He  has  no  goal,  no  objective,  but 
he  goes  ahead  just  the  same. 

Ask  him  what  his  purpose  is,  and  as  I  have 
already  remarked  he  will  look  vaguely  about  and 
say,  "  Why  —  er  —  to  tell  about  so-and-so  "  — 
mentioning  his  subject,  not  his  purpose.  Rare  in- 
deed is  the  genius  who  answers  unhesitatingly, 
"  To  convince  the  class  that  such-and-such  a 
measure  would  be  wise,"  or,  "  To  entertain  my 
audience  with  an  account  of  some  personal  ad- 
ventures." 

Yet  it  ought  to  be  obvious  that  in  public  speak- 
ing as  in  other  things  a  clear  fixed  purpose  is  es- 
sential if  one  is  to  stand  a  reasonable  chance  of 
accomplishing  it. 

Absence  of  a  clear  purpose  is  a  habit  with 

14 


PURPOSE   IN   PUBLIC   SPEAKING      15 

twentieth  century  Americans.  Rapidity  and  com- 
plexity of  life  lead  naturally  to  confusion,  haste, 
superficiality  and  muddle-headedness ;  and  with 
these  goes  vagueness  of  purpose. 

If  the  student  speaker  is  to  overcome  the  habit 
in  his  own  case  he  must  first  learn  by  analysis 
what  the  possible  purposes  of  a  speaker  are,  and 
then  so  govern  himself  that  he  never  speaks  ex- 
cept with  one  of  those  purposes  definitely  and 
dominantly  in  mind. 

Remembering  that  purpose  in  a  speaker  is  to 
be  considered  in  terms  of  what  he  is  trying  to  do 
to  the  audience,  we  may  fairly  say  that  the  pos- 
sible purposes  are: 

1.  To  inform 

2.  To  enlighten 

3.  To  convince 

4.  To  impress 

5.  To  excite 

6.  To  actuate 

7.  To  entertain 

Note  that  each  of  these  is  presented  in  the  form 
of  a  transitive  verb  to  which  the  words  "  the  audi- 
ence "  may  be  added  as  direct  object. 

The  classification  is  arbitrary,  of  course.  Other 
writers  divide  differently,  or  use  different  terms; 


16    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

some  combine  numbers  1  and  2,  or  4  and  5,  or  5 
and  6.  The  student  may  very  well  analyze  for 
himself,  choosing  his  own  terms.  The  essential 
thing  is  that  he  shall  have  some  rational  classi- 
fication sufficiently  comprehensive  to  include  all 
possible  purposes  of  the  speaker,  and  that  he  shall 
use  it. 

Assuming  that  he  wishes  —  by  reason  either  of 
laziness  or  superior  intelligence  —  to  use  the  one 
I  offer  him,  let  me  explain  it  seriatim. 

1.  To  inform.  The  speaker's  purpose  is  to  in- 
form when  he  seeks  primarily  to  furnish  his 
hearers  with  facts,  especially  with  facts  new  to 
them;  when  he  aims  to  increase  their  knowledge 
as  distinct  from  their  understanding.  His  effort 
is  directed  at  the  recording  function  of  the  mind 
—  at  the  memory,  if  you  like ;  and  the  measure  of 
success  is  qualitative.  A  teacher  giving  out  the 
multiplication  table  is  an  example;  or  one  giving 
out  the  names  of  the  continents ;  or  a  returned  ex- 
plorer recounting  his  discoveries.  But  a  teacher 
explaining  the  principles  of  long  division  would 
not  be  an  example  —  not  in  the  narrow  sense  in 
which  the  word  "  inform  "  is  here  used. 

2.  To  enlighten.    The  speaker's  purpose  is  to 
enlighten  when  he  aims  to  clear  up  some  difficulty 


PURPOSE    IN   PUBLIC   SPEAKING      17 

of  comprehension ;  to  present,  not  necessarily  new 
facts,  but  a  new  view  of  the  relationship  of  facts; 
to  improve  his  hearers'  understanding  of  a  given 
subject  rather  than  to  increase  their  knowledge; 
in  other  words,  to  explain  something  to  them. 
The  teacher  explaining  long  division  would  be  an 
example  of  this;  or  Mr.  Einstein  expounding  his 
theory  of  relativity;  or  a  football  coach  giving  a 
blackboard  demonstration  of  a  complicated  play. 
Note  again  the  narrow  meaning  of  the  word  for 
purposes  of  distinction. 

3.  To  convince.  The  speaker's  purpose  is  to 
convince  when  he  seeks  to  make  his  audience  be- 
lieve a  debatable  assertion,  accept  a  statement 
as  true,  or  adopt  an  opinion.  It  is  not  knowledge 
or  understanding  that  he  seeks,  but  agreement; 
though  he  may  use  knowledge  or  understanding  as 
a  means  to  that  end.  The  legislator  supporting 
a  bill ;  the  attorney  arguing  a  point  at  law  before 
a  judge;  the  sincere  propagandist  seeking  con- 
verts to  a  new  "  ism,"  —  these  are  examples.  But 
the  contentious  "  chronic  kicker,"  the  political 
mud-slinger,  the  fire-eating  orator  denouncing  his 
enemies  and  laying  down  the  law,  are  not,  for 
they  are  making  no  sincere  attempt  to  convince. 

4.  To  impress.     The  speaker's  purpose  is  to 


18    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

impress  when  he  seeks  to  bring  to  his  hearers  a 
new  and  deeper  realization  of  a  truth,  perhaps  an 
old  truth  already  known  to  them;  not  to  make 
them  know  it,  or  understand  it  merely,  but  to 
make  them  feel  it,  and  feel  it  deeply;  to  sear  it 
into  their  souls  by  challenging  attention,  appeal- 
ing to  the  sympathies,  and  associating  emotion 
with  thought.  The  patriotic  orator  repeating  the 
familiar  message  of  the  life  of  Washington,  or 
Lincoln,  as  a  source  of  inspiration  to  his  hearers; 
the  preacher  striving  to  tell  the  old  old  Christmas 
story  in  such  a  way  as  to  awaken  new  reverence  of 
spirit  in  his  congregation;  the  college  president 
bidding  farewell  to  the  senior  class  in  old  but  hal- 
lowed words,  —  all  these  are  examples. 

5.  To  excite.  The  speaker's  purpose  is  to  ex- 
cite when  he  seeks  to  reach  the  more  direct  and 
more  tempestuous  emotional  reactions  in  his  audi- 
ence ;  to  arouse  such  emotions  as  fear,  hatred,  in- 
dignation, enthusiasm,  hilarity,  pugnacity  —  not 
as  a  means  to  an  end  but  as  an  end  in  itself.  To 
excite  is  the  least  worthy  purpose,  though  not 
the  least  common.  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  worst 
type  of  mob  orator,  the  agitator,  the  spellbinder. 
Its  independence  of  other  purposes  is  the  meas- 
ure of  its  un worthiness:   as  a  means  to  other  ends 


PURPOSE   IN   PUBLIC   SPEAKING      19 

it  may  at  times  be  justifiable.  Closely  associated 
with  the  purpose  to  impress,  it  differs  from  it  in 
that  it  appeals  to  the  emotions  alone,  while  to  im- 
press appeals  to  the  emotions  and  thoughts  har- 
moniously combined.  To  impress  implies  a 
strengthening  of  the  spiritual  control  of  the  lis- 
tener; to  excite  implies  a  weakening. 

6.  To  actuate.  The  speaker's  purpose  is  to 
actuate  when  he  aims  not  merely  to  plant  beliefs 
or  impressions  that  may  later  work  out  into  ac- 
tions, but  to  move  his  hearers  to  some  definite 
act,  —  particularly  some  act  to  be  performed  at 
the  time  and  place  of  the  speech,  or  very  soon 
after.  The  appeal  may  be  emotional,  perhaps 
following  excitation;  or  it  may  be  intellectual, 
perhaps  following  conviction ;  or  it  may  be  a  com- 
bination of  both.  People  who  are  convinced  of  a 
truth  do  not  always  get  round  to  act  upon  their 
convictions;  it  is  often  necessary  to  add  persua- 
sion —  that  is,  to  arouse  their  emotions  in  such  a 
way  as  to  overcome  their  natural  inertia  and  pro- 
vide a  motive  force.  Examples  may  be  found 
in  the  political  speaker  urging  his  party  constitu- 
ents to  come  out  and  vote :  the  missionary  appeal- 
ing for  funds;  the  recruiting  officer  in  war  time 
exhorting  a  crowd  of  men  to  enlist. 


20    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

7.  To  entertain.  The  speaker's  purpose  is  to 
entertain  when  he  has  no  other  object  than  to 
give  his  hearers  pleasure/  The  pleasure  may  be 
of  a  mirthful  or  a  sober  kind:  entertainment  does 
not  necessarily  imply  hilarity.  Some  writers  use 
the  term  "  to  interest "  in  this  same  sense ;  it  is 
perhaps  a  broader  term,  but  seems  to  me  to  sug- 
gest a  means  rather  than  a  purpose.  Of  examples, 
the  commonest  is  the  after-dinner  speech ;  a  more 
sober  one  is  the  Chautauqua  or  University  Exten- 
sion lecture  of  the  type  purporting  to  be  educa- 
tional, but  really  primarily  intended  to  entertain. 

Such  are  the  possible  purposes  of  a  speaker. 
Clearly  one  of  them  must  dominate  every  speech 
if  the  speech  is  to  have  unity,  for  unity  is  simply 
singleness  of  purpose. 

Other  purposes  may  enter  into  a  speech  as 
contributing  or  subordinate  elements;  or  a  speech 
may  have  both  an  immediate  and  an  ultimate 
purpose.  The  student  should  keep  clearly  in 
mind  the  difference  between  a  means  and  an  end ; 
between  a  contributory  and  a  dominant  purpose. 

1  The  purpose  of  entertainment  brings  public  speaking 
nearer  the  Fine  Arts  than  any  other  purpose  (see  Chapter  I) ; 
but  it  is  possible  to  distinguish  between  a  communication  of 
ideas  for  the  purpose  of  entertaining,  and  an  oral  interpre- 
tation of  an  entertaining  discourse.  There  is  no  real  need 
for  confusion. 


PURPOSE   IN   PUBLIC   SPEAKING      21 

He  should  realize  that  one  may  have  many  uni- 
ties within  a  unity.  A  novel,  for  instance,  may 
have  ten  chapters,  four  of  which  are  informative 
in  purpose,  three  entertaining,  two  impressive, 
and  one  enlightening;  yet  the  purpose  of  the 
whole  may  be  to  convince.  The  unity  of  purpose 
of  the  whole  novel  is  built  out  of  ten  lesser  unities, 
no  one  of  which  happens  to  be  the  same  as  the 
unity  of  the  whole.  And  each  of  these  chapter 
unities  is  built  up  out  of  still  smaller  paragraph 
unities,  and  each  paragraph  unity  out  of  still 
smaller  sentence  unities.  One  is  reminded  of 
Dean  Swift: 

So  naturalists  observe  a  flea 
Has  smaller  fleas  that  on  him  prey. 
And  these  have  smaller  still  to  bite  'em, 
And  so  proceed  ad  infinitum. 

But  the  most  practical  thing  I  can  say  about 
purpose  in  public  speaking  is  this:  I  have  never 
known  a  student  speaker  to  fail  because  he  did 
not  have  enough  different  purposes  combined  in 
his  speech,  whereas  many  fail  every  day  because 
they  have  too  many  purposes  in  one  speech,  or 
because  they  have  no  clear  purpose  at  all.  The 
moral  is  plain. 


Chapter   IV 
MOTIVATION 

1  APPROACH  the  subject  of  Motivation  with 
misgivings,  for  the  reason  that  I  have  never 
been  able  to  make  a  student  understand  it.  The 
word  seems  to  paralyze  all  ordinary  intellects  — 
perhaps  because  it  suggests  the  psychological 
laboratory;  words  like  inhibition,  behavioristic, 
and  complex  (the  noun)  appear  to  have  a  similar 
effect.  But  motivation  is  the  only  word  that 
seems  to  cover  the  idea  I  wish  to  convey. 

The  idea  itself  is  simple,  and  not  at  all  technical 
or  mysterious. 

Besides  a  subject  and  a  purpose  every  good 
speech  must  have  a  motive.  That  is,  there  must 
be  a  reason,  or  a  justification,  for  its  existence  — 
or  rather  a  whole  set  of  reasons.  There  must  be  a 
reason  for  the  choice  of  time,  of  place,  of  speaker, 
of  subject,  of  purpose;  a  reason  why  the  speaker 
should  find  it  necessary  to  speak;  a  reason  why 
the  audience  should  be  wilhng  to  stay  and  listen. 

22 


MOTIVATION  23 

Sometimes  the  circumstances  provide  certain 
of  these  reasons  automatically;  quite  often,  in 
fact.  Because  of  this  the  student  seldom  realizes 
how  essential  they  are,  and  he  never  feels  any 
burden  upon  himself  to  supply  them  when  they 
happen  to  be  lacking. 

For  example:  A  student  recites  a  dreary  lot  of 
second-hand  facts  about,  let  us  say,  the  difficul- 
ties of  climbing  Mt.  Everest.  The  class  quietly 
dozes.  When  he  is  finished  I  ask  him  what  his 
motivation  was  supposed  to  be. 

He  stares  at  me  with  a  slightly  injured  look, 
and  then  starts  out  with  the  usual  formula: 

"  Why  —  er  —  to  tell  about  .  .  ." 

I  interrupt  him.  "  Yes,  yes,  but  why  should 
you?  " 

That  floors  him.  He  doesn't  like  to  confess 
that  since  he  had  to  make  a  speech  he  thought 
one  subject  would  do  as  well  as  another.  He 
stammers  a  little  and  then  blurts  out: 

"Well  —  I  thought  it  would  be  interesting." 

"  How  do  you  mean?  " 

He  stammers  again,  and  then  his  face  lights 
up;  he  has  suddenly  remembered  something 
taught  him  in  a  course  in  composition. 

"  Why,"  he  says,  "  It  interested  me,  and  so  I 


24    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

thought  it  would  interest  others.  The  Proff  in 
English  One  says  that  what  interests  the  writer 
is  pretty  sure  to  interest  the  reader,  and  you  said 
yourself  we  ought  to  choose  subjects  we  are  in- 
terested in." 

"  But/'  I  ask,  "  how  did  the  subject  come  to 
interest  you?  Did  you  ever  try  to  climb  Mt. 
Everest?  " 

"  Oh,  no !  I  read  an  article  about  it  in  the 
National  Geographic  Magazine." 

"  Who  wrote  the  article?  " 

"  Some  scientist;  I  don't  remember  his  name." 

"  Did  he  know  anything  about  Mt.  Everest?  " 

"  He  seemed  to." 

"  Had  he  been  there?  " 

"  Yes,  I  think  so." 

"Was  the  article  illustrated?  " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  quite  a  number  of  pictures." 

"  Photographs?  " 

"  Yes,  I  think  they  were." 

"  And  so  you  think,"  I  continue^  "  that  be- 
cause this  article  interested  you  it  ought  to  in- 
terest others?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  so  it  ought  —  and  does.  And  the  rea- 
son is  that  the  article  is  perfectly  motivated. 


MOTIVATION  25 

But  that  does  not  prove  that  a  speech  by  you 
on  the  same  subject  would  interest  others.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  it  didn't,  as  you  saw,  and  the  rea- 
son is  that  it  wasn't  motivated  at  all." 

And  then  I  try  to  explain  to  him  and  to  the  class 
that  there  is  every  reason  in  the  world  why  a 
scientist,  having  acquired  experience  and  photo- 
graphs of  the  country  about  Mt.  Everest,  should 
publish  them  in  the  National  Geographic  Maga- 
zine; and  every  reason  why  the  sort  of  person 
who  reads  that  magazine  should  be  interested  in 
the  article.  "  But  why,"  I  ask  them,  "  should  a 
college  student  who  knows  no  more  about  Mt. 
Everest  than  any  other  casual  reader  of  the 
Geographic  presume  to  lecture  upon  that  sub- 
ject? And  why  should  a  class  of  bored  public- 
speaking  students  manifest  an  interest  in  his 
effort?  " 

They  shouldn't,  and  they  don't.  And  no  au- 
dience ever  will  manifest  an  interest  in  a  speech 
that  is  not  in  some  way  motivated. 

It  is  true  that  outside  of  the  classroom  motiva- 
tion is  frequently  automatic:  that  is,  the  speech 
is  motivated  by  the  circumstances.  If  Roald 
Amundsen  is  advertised  to  speak  on  the  South 
Pole  everybody  knows  why  —  why  there  is  to  be 


26    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC    SPEAKING 

a  speech,  why  Mr.  Amundsen  and  not  some  one 
else  is  to  deliver  it,  and  why  he  has  chosen  that 
subject;  and  nobody  will  pay  the  price  of  ad- 
mission who  does  not  really  want  to  hear  the 
speech.  That  is  perfect  motivation,  with  no  ef- 
fort on  the  speaker's  part. 

Or  suppose  Mr.  William  Jennings  Bryan  were 
advertised  to  speak  on  the  subject  of  "  Money." 
Mr.  Bryan's  great  reputation  as  an  orator  would 
provide  a  part  of  the  motivation,  but  only  a  part. 
It  would  explain  the  choice  of  speaker,  but  it 
would  not  explain  the  choice  of  topic  at  all. 
People  would  be  eager  to  hear  Mr.  Bryan  speak, 
but  at  the  same  time  they  would  be  wondering 
what  the  topic  really  meant,  and  why  he  should 
have  chosen  such  a  topic  for  such  a  time  and  place. 
It  would  be  his  task  to  show  them  why  —  to  pro- 
vide that  part  of  the  motivation ;  and  Mr.  Bryan, 
being  a  skilful  speaker,  would  do  so  in  the  first 
few  sentences. 

Not  all  speeches,  however,  even  outside  the 
classroom,  are  delivered  by  well-known  speakers, 
or  by  persons  of  authority.  Often  an  audience  is 
entirely  in  the  dark  as  to  the  identity  or  quali- 
fications of  a  speaker,  or  his  relation  to  the  sub- 
ject, or  the  relation  of  the  subject  to  the  occasion; 


MOTIVATION  27 

especially  is  this  true  when  there  are  to  be  a  num- 
ber of  speakers  at  the  one  meeting.  In  such 
cases  the  burden  of  motivation  is  likely  to  be  en- 
tirely on  the  speaker;  he  must  provide  all  the 
necessary  reasons,  and  provide  them  quickly  and 
clearly. 

This  is  just  what  the  college  student,  address- 
ing his  classmates  in  public  speaking  on  a  sub- 
ject of  his  own  choosing,  does  not  do.  He  should 
understand  that  if  he  does  not  learn  to  do  it  in 
class  he  will  not  realize  the  necessity  of  doing  it 
•elsewhere.  He  will  be  making  ineffectiveness  a 
habit. 

"  But,"  says  an  objecting  student,  "  it  is  very 
hard  to  motivate  a  class  speech.  The  occasion 
doesn't  provide  any  motivation,  and  we  can't  al- 
ways find  subjects  we  know  all  about;  we  don't 
know  enough." 

I  hear  this  sort  of  objection  very  often.  Let  me 
say  to  the  student  —  with  brutal  sincerity  — 
that  the  attitude  of  mind  which  the  objection 
represents  is  the  real  reason  for  his  difficulty  in 
motivation,  and  for  a  good  many  other  difficulties 
that  beset  him  in  all  subjects.  The  student  of 
today,  bred  to  the  notion  that  education  should  be 
entertaining  rather  than  disciplinary,  seems  to 


28    HANDBOOK    OF  PUBLIC    SPEAKING 

think  that  his  whole  duty  is  to  perform  a  certain 
painless  routine  along  the  path  of  least  resistance; 
that  it  is  unfair  and  unreasonable  for  an  instruc- 
tor to  ask  him  to  do  anything  hard.  His  atti- 
tude is  passive  and  defensive.  He  will  not  go 
after  knowledge.  He  will  permit  the  instructor 
to  give  it  to  him,  of  course  —  provided  the  in- 
structor will  be  entertaining  in  manner  and 
reasonable  in  his  demands.  If  the  instructor 
wants  motivated  speeches  the  student  will  make 
a  reasonable  effort  to  motivate  them.  If  the  in- 
structor is  not  satisfied,  well  —  the  student  is 
sorry,  but  he  did  his  best ;  he  cannot  be  expected 
to  shoulder  all  the  worries  of  the  course.  Let  the 
instructor  be  clearer  about  it.  Let  him  provide 
his  own  subjects  and  motivate  them  himself. 

I  am  not  exaggerating.  Not  one  bit.  I  have 
had  many  a  student,  annoyed  at  criticism,  invite 
me  to  suggest  subject,  or  purpose,  or  motive  for 
him,  in  a  manner  that  said  all  too  plainly,  "  If 
you  don't  like  my  way  of  doing  it,  do  it  yourself. 
/  didn't  invent  motivation."  Of  course  not,  and 
neither  did  the  teacher.  But  what  the  student 
seems  to  have  missed  is  the  fact  that  it  is  his 
speech  that  is  to  be  motivated,  and  his  audience 
that  is  to  be  kept  awake. 


MOTIVATION  29 

Students  who  have  the  courage  to  assume  a 
more  sportsmanlike  attitude,  and  who  are  willing 
to  learn  how  to  motivate  their  speeches,  will  find 
some  practical  suggestions  in  Chapter  XV.  But 
they  will  find  the  suggestions  of  very  little  use 
unless  they  first  realize  the  need  of  motivation, 
the  meaning  of  motivation,  and  the  fact  that  the 
motivation  of  their  own  speeches  is  nobody's  job 
but  theirs. 


Chapter   V 
ATTENTION 

EFFECTIVENESS  in  public  speaking  is  of 
course  largely  a  matter  of  attention  —  that 
of  the  speaker  and  that  of  the  audience  —  and 
there  are  one  or  two  points  about  the  phenomenon 
of  attention  which  the  speaker  will  do  well  to 
bear  in  mind. 

In  the  first  place  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
continuous  attention.  Attention  is  an  instan- 
taneous reaction  resulting  from  an  internal  or 
external  stimulus,  and  the  only  way  of  sustaining 
it  is  by  renewing  it  with  a  constant  series  of  fresh 
stimuli.  "  No  one  can  possibly  attend  continu- 
ously to  an  object  that  does  not  change."  ^  Fixa- 
tion of  attention  is  equivalent  to  destruction  of 
attention,  —  a  principle  well  known  to  the  hypno- 
tist, who  induces  sleep  in  his  subject  by  getting 
him  to  fix  his  gaze  on  some  bright  object  and  to 
shut  everything  else  out  of  his  mind.  The 
monotonous  speaker  does  the  same  thing  —  un- 

1  James,  "  Principles  of  Psychology,"  Vol.  I,  p.  421. 

30 


ATTENTION  31 

intentionally  of  course;  he  simply  hypnotizes  his 
audience  into  a  deep  and  peaceful  sleep. 
-__..  The  problem  for  the  speaker  is  how  to  renew 
attention  at  frequent  enough  intervals.  It  would 
be  a  simple  matter  if  he  could  follow  the  method 
used  by  the  Pilgrim  fathers  in  their  churches.  In 
their  scheme  of  things  the  preacher  who  could  not 
keep  his  congregation  awake  was  assisted  by  a 
beadle,  who,  when  he  saw  a  parishioner  begin- 
ning to  doze  off,  applied  the  necessary  stimulus 
to  renewed  attention  in  the  form  of  a  sharp  rap 
on  the  head.  The  modern  preacher,  denied  such 
assistance,  generally  resorts  to  the  cowardly  but 
commendable  expedient  of  making  his  sermons 
short,  so  that  his  listeners  do  not  have  time  to  go 
to  sleep.  Some  preachers  —  like  Billy  Sunday  — 
prefer,  metaphorically  speaking,  to  rap  their  own 
listeners  on  the  head  by  means  of  wild  shouts, 
gesticulations,  and  acrobatic  "  stunts  "  —  which 
certainly  serve  the  purpose  of  renewing  attention 
however  they  may  stand  with  reference  to  good 
taste. 

The  speaker  should  remember  that  whatever 
his  method  he  positively  must  provide  a  variety 
of  fresh  stimuli  at  frequent  intervals  if  he  is  to 
maintain  any  sort  of  attention.    How  to  do  so  he 


32    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

must  learn  by  experiment,  although  he  will  find 
some  hints  in  this  and  the  following  chapters. 
The  important  point  is  that  any  sort  of  monotony 
is  utterly  ruinous  to  attention  because  of  the 
simple  principle  just  stated.^ 

Another  valuable  fact  which  the  speaker  may 
learn  from  the  psychologist  is  that  attention  is  of 
two  kinds:  involuntary  and  voluntary. 

Involuntary  attention,  which  the  psychologist 
calls  primary,  is  that  which  is  generated  spon- 
taneously by  an  assault  on  the  senses;  as  when  a 
gun  is  fired,  or  when  a  bright  light  suddenly  flashes 
out  of  the  darkness,  or  when  Billy  Sunday  slides 
to  second  base.  These  are  extreme  examples; 
there  are  milder  ways  of  getting  involuntary  atten- 
tion through  the  senses.  But  whatever  attention 
is  purely  animal  and  automatic  belongs  in  this 
class. 

Voluntary  attention,  or  secondary,  is  that 
which  results  from  concentration  of  mind,  from 
the  will  to  attend.  It  is  intellectual,  rather  than 
animal,  and  is  only  to  be  relied  upon  in  those  of 
some  mentality.  The  sort  of  attention  which  a 
student  gives  to  his  lessons  in   the  wee  small 

1  For  some  further  remarks  on  the  subject  of  monotony 
see  Chapter  XIII,  pp.  107-108. 


ATTENTION  33 

hours,  with  a  towel  around  his  head  and  a  cup  of 
coffee  beside  him  (or  perhaps  this  isn't  done  any- 
more?) is  secondary  attention. 

The  would-be  public  speaker  might  just  as  well 
learn  at  the  start  that  he  can  rely  on  very  little 
secondary  attention  on  the  part  of  even  the  most 
intellectual  audience,  and  none  at  all  on  the  part 
of  an  audience  that  is  stupid,  or  tired,  or  indiffer- 
ent. Under  the  most  favorable  conditions  he  can 
expect  less  secondary  attention  from  his  hearers 
than  a  writer  can  expect  of  a  reader.  The  reader 
gives  his  attention  to  a  book  when  he  feels  most 
like  it ;  he  can  choose  his  own  time,  place,  position, 
lighting,  and  even  the  reading  itself;  he  is  accus- 
tomed to  the  idea  of  throwing  himself  actively  into 
the  world  of  the  book;  and  he  is  less  subject  to  dis- 
tractions. The  listener,  on  the  other  hand,  es- 
pecially when  he  is  one  of  a  large  audience,  is 
accustomed  to  being  led;  his  attitude  is  passive 
rather  than  active ;  he  yields  himself  to  whatever 
stimuli  are  affecting  the  rest  of  the  mob,  whether 
those  stimuli  happen  to  be  coming  from  the 
speaker  or  from  some  source  of  distraction.  He  is 
a  good  subject  upon  which  to  work  for  primary 
attention,  but  a  poor  hand  to  give  secondary 
attention. 


34      HANDBOOK  OF  PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

The  speaker  must  therefore  school  himself  to 
rely  upon  his  own  power  to  secure  primary  atten- 
tion, and  to  do  so  with  such  variety  and  frequency 
as  to  avoid  loss  of  attention  through  monotony. 
The  most  valuable  hints  that  I  can  give  him  as  to 
how  to  do  so  he  will  find  in  the  chapters  on  Con- 
creteness,  Reinforcement,  and  Humor;  but  one 
hint  has  already  been  given  in  the  discussion  of 
the  reciprocal  mental  relationship  between 
speaker  and  audience.^  This  is,  simply,  that  a 
very  large  part  of  the  speaker's  power  to  hold 
attention  is  dependent  upon  his  power  to  give 
his  own.  Unless  he  is  himself  clearly  giving 
vigorous  attention  to  his  subject,  to  his  purpose, 
and  above  all  to  his  audience,  he  can  hardly 
expect  them  to  give  attention  to  him. 

A  speaker  is  often  said  to  experience  a  "  clash 
of  wills"  with  his  audience;  to  dominate  his 
audience  by  force  of  will  power.  In  most  cases  he 
really  dominates  them  by  force  of  attention.  Will 
power  undoubtedly  plays  a  part,  but  indirectly 
rather  than  directly.  The  speaker's  will  keeps  his 
mind  on  the  subject,  keeps  him  in  an  active  state 
of  voluntary  attention.  Through  that  voluntary 
attention  he  develops  his  own  best  effectiveness, 

1  See  Chapter  II. 


ATTENTION  35 

and  makes  his  strongest  possible  assault  on  the  in- 
voluntary attention  of  his  audience. 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  for  a  speaker  to  over-do 
this  matter  of  will  power  —  especially  a  speaker 
of  unpleasant  personality.  It  is  possible  for  him  to 
be  so  aggressive  in  forcing  his  attention  upon  the 
audience,  and  claiming  theirs,  as  to  become  offen- 
sive; the  audience  feel  as  if  he  were  trying  to  jump 
down  their  throats.  There  are  people  who  always 
talk  in  this  fashion,  whether  in  public  or  in  pri- 
vate, and  they  are  probably  incurable. 

In  the  give-and-take  of  attention  between 
speaker  and  audience,  in  the  establishment  of  that 
reciprocal  mental  relationship,  the  eyes  constitute 
the  chief  medium  of  communication.  Through 
the  use  of  his  eyes  the  speaker  conveys  to  the 
audience  a  sense  of  his  own  attention;  through 
his  observation  of  their  eyes  he  experiences  a 
sense  of  their  response. 

In  giving  attention  he  must  remember  to  dis- 
tribute it;  to  avoid  giving  it  all  to  one  person,  or 
to  one  group,  or  to  one  side  of  the  room,  with  the 
consequent  effect  of  making  the  rest  of  his  audi- 
ence feel  left  out  of  the  occasion.  Neither  a 
fixed  gaze  nor  a  vacant  roving  gaze  will  do; 
neither  conveys  a  sense  of  communication  to  the 


36    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

whole  audience.  What  the  speaker  must  do  is 
to  look  into  the  eyes  of  his  listeners,  one  at  a 
time,  for  a  brief  period  only,  shifting  from  one 
to  another  with  pleasing  variety  and  with  ap- 
proximate fairness  of  distribution.  His  eyes  must 
meet  theirs  in  focus,^ 

Because  of  the  difficulty  of  doing  this  when  one 
is  self-conscious,  some  speakers  fall  into  the  habit 
of  looking  at  the  wall  or  ceiling,  while  others  pick 
out  friendly  faces  and  make  "  hitching  posts  "  of 
them.  The  former  practice  generally  results  in 
weakening  the  speaker's  own  sense  of  communica- 
tion, and  consequently  his  effectiveness;  the  latter 
sometimes  gives  the  speaker  more  confidence  and 
improves  his  effectiveness  with  the  few  friendly 
listeners  to  whom  he  is  directing  his  talk,  but  at 
the  expense  of  the  general  attention.    The  ideal 

1  There  are  dissensions  from  this  point  of  view.  One  of 
the  best  teachers  I  know  refuses  to  look  at  his  audiences  be- 
cause he  feels  that  it  is  "  cheap  and  unworthy "  to  have 
audiences  "  hanging  upon  his  words."  He  makes  a  practice 
of  talking  over  their  heads  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  thought, 
which  always  seems  to  be  hanging  from  the  ceiling  somewhere 
at  the  rear  of  the  room.  He  has  fine  things  to  say,  a  vigorous 
personality,  and  a  powerful  resonant  voice;  and  he  talks 
most  of  the  time  to  students  who  are  too  busy  taking  notes  to 
look  up  and  watch  him.  It  is  my  opinion  that  he  is  success- 
ful not  because  of  the  way  he  uses  his  eyes  but  in  spite  of  it. 
However,  he  is  certainly  successful,  and  the  student  will  do 
well  to  examine  the  merits  of  both  points  of  view. 


ATTENTION  37 

situation  is  for  the  speaker  to  discover  that  every 
face  is  a  friendly  face,  and  so  to  make  a  "  hitching 
post "  of  every  listener.  When  he  does  that  he 
sometimes  gets  something  very  like  a  perfect  state 
of  attention. 

Apart  from  the  speaker's  own  self-conscious- 
ness the  chief  obstacle  in  the  way  of  perfect  atten- 
tion is  distraction,  and  of  that  something  will  be 
said  in  Chapter  VII. 


253.560 


Chapter  VI 
CONCRETENESS 

THE  value  of  concrete  illustration  in  any 
form  of  discourse  is  so  well  known  as  to 
amount  to  a  commonplace.  Any  student  who 
has  taken  a  course  in  public  speaking  or  in  com- 
position knows  that  concrete  illustration  is  a 
great  aid  to  attention  and  the  best  means  of  driv- 
ing a  point  home. 

But  ask  him  what  concreteness  is;  ask  him  to 
explain  the  distinction  between  the  abstract  and 
the  concrete,  —  and  see  what  happens.  I  have 
asked  hundreds,  and  have  hardly  ever  found  one 
who  could  explain  accurately  and  clearly.  This, 
of  course,  is  normal ;  we  use  words  every  day  that 
we  do  not  know  the  meaning  of. 

If  I  ask  ten  students  to  explain  concreteness, 
five  will  say  that  the  concrete  is  specific,  the  ab- 
stract general.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  they  can 
seldom  explain  the  difi"erence  between  the  specific 
and  the  general,  this  is  a  poor  explanation,  be- 

38 


CONCRETENESS  39 

cause  in  the  first  place  it  does  not  explain  and  in 
the  second  place  it  is  not  true.  The  idea  of  good 
qualities,  for  instance,  is  general  and  abstract; 
but  the  specific  idea  of  the  quality  of  mercy  is 
equally  abstract.  On  the  other  hand  the  general 
idea  of  green,  sweet-smelling  meadows  and  rip- 
pling brooks  is  quite  as  concrete  as  the  specific 
idea  of  one  particular  brook.  The  distinction  be- 
tween specific  and  general  is  a  matter  of  quantity, 
scope,  or  extent.  That  between  abstract  and  con- 
crete is  qualitative,  and  psychological. 

Three  more  of  the  ten  will  say  that  the  con- 
crete is  that  which  is  solid,  heavy,  closely  packed, 
intensely  unified.  They  have  got  their  concrete 
mixed  with  Portland  cement;  they  know  more 
about  road-building  than  about  mental  processes. 
Another  student  will  perhaps  confess  simply  that 
he  does  not  know  the  distinction;  and  the  last 
one  will  say  that  the  concrete  is  the  "  tangible," 
the  abstract  the  "  intangible,"  He  is  approxi- 
mately right  —  if  he  doesn't  spoil  it  by  proving  in 
the  next  sentence  that  he  does  not  know  what 
"  tangible  "  means.  It  means  "  touchable,"  and 
in  that  sense  his  statement  is  at  least  one-fifth 
true. 

A  thing  is  concrete  in  proportion  as  it  is  in 


40    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

terms  of  the  five  senses^;  in  proportion  as  it 
arouses  mental  images,  either  by  physical  stimu- 
lus or  by  suggestion. 

The  human  mind  begins,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, as  a  blank.  The  infant  receives  sense  im- 
pressions, but  at  first  they  mean  nothing  to  him 
and  provoke  no  response  (except  the  negative, 
purely  instinctive  response  to  pain).  Gradually, 
however,  the  child  learns  to  recognize  sensory 
stimuli  as  familiar,  then  to  associate  two  or  more 
of  them  together,  then  to  re-create  them  in 
imagination,  and  finally  to  reason  about  them. 
This  is  the  development  of  the  thinking  process, 
sometimes  called  the  process  of  abstraction.  From 
purely  physical,  or  animal,  impressions,  the  child 
proceeds  by  increasingly  difficult  steps  of  infer- 
ence to  the  realm  of  pure  thought. 

Concreteness  and  abstractness  are  relative 
terms.  A  thing  is  concrete  in  proportion  as  it  is 
in  terms  of  the  senses;  it  is  abstract  in  proportion 
as  it  is  in  terms  of  the  thoughts. 

The  senses  are  direct,  physical,  animal,  and  in- 
voluntary. The  thoughts  are  indirect,  mental, 
super- animal,  and  more  or  less  voluntary;  the 

1  Some  psychologists  maintain  that  there  are  seven,  or 
nine;  but  the  old-fashioned  five  will  do  for  our  purposes. 


CONCRETENESS  41 

more  abstract  they  become  —  that  is,  the  farther 
removed  from  the  original  sensory  elements  — 
the  more  volition  they  call  for. 

This  is  the  point  that  is  vital  to  the  public 
speaker.  The  concrete,  being  in  terms  of  sensory 
images,  tends  to  claim  involuntary  or  primary  at- 
tention ;  while  the  abstract,  being  in  terms  of  de- 
rived mental  processes,  calls  for  secondary  or 
voluntary  attention,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
audience  does  not  usually  care  to  give. 

That  is  all  there  is  to  it.  It  is  very  simple. 
The  speaker  wants  attention.  To  get  it  he  must, 
as  a  rule,  do  something  that  brings  an  involuntary 
response;  the  abstract  thought  processes  are  not 
involuntary,  but  voluntary;  therefore  he  must 
either  avoid  them  or  so  support  them  with  con- 
crete —  that  is,  sensory  —  illustrations,  real  or 
imaginative,  as  to  make  the  necessary  assault  on 
the  sensory  functions  of  his  hearers.  When  he 
does  so  they  listen.  When  he  does  not  they  go 
to  sleep,  quite  regardless  of  the  intrinsic  value 
of  what  he  has  to  say. 

When  you  hear  a  speaker  indulging  in  pro- 
longed abstractions  watch  his  audience  and  see 
how  lifeless  they  are.  Then  see  what  happens 
when  he  says,  "For  instance:   I  once  knew  a 


42    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

man  .  .  ."  At  the  very  sound  of  the  words  "  for 
instance  "  you  will  see  the  audience  sit  up  and 
brighten  up.  I  have  been  able  to  illustrate  this 
point  to  classes  repeatedly  by  making  them  do 
that  very  thing. 

Concreteness  is  the  soul  of  attention,  and  it  is  a 
rare  speaker  indeed  who  can  make  himself  in- 
teresting without  it.  Yet  the  inexperienced 
speaker  constantly  fails  to  make  use  of  it — partly, 
no  doubt,  because  he  does  not  fully  understand 
it,  and  partly  because  it  is  difficult  to  devise  ways 
of  being  concrete  without  a  certain  amount  of 
hard  work.  When  he  does  remember  to  use  con- 
creteness he  almost  always  uses  it  in  its  crudest 
form :  that  of  the  definite  story  or  anecdote,  used 
as  an  illustration  or  example,  and  not  infre- 
quently dragged  in  by  the  heels.  Not  that  I  wish 
to  discourage  the  use  of  illustrative  anecdotes  — 
far  from  it!  But  one  can  be  concrete  in  other 
ways  also.  The  principle  of  concreteness  can  be 
continuously  and  unobtrusively  applied  by  means 
of  constant  attention  to  imagery  —  by  the  use 
of  such  words  and  phrases  in  the  very  statement 
of  abstract  thoughts  as  will  tend  to  stimulate  the 
imagination,  and  to  make  one  mentally  see,  hear, 
taste,  touch,  and  smell. 


CONCRETENESS  43 

But  the  speaker  should  remember  that  con- 
creteness  is  personal  and  relative:  what  is  con- 
crete to  one  person  is  abstract  to  another  whose 
experiences  have  been  different,  A  walrus  is  a 
more  concrete  idea  to  an  Eskimo  than  to  a  native 
of  Brazil,  but  a  ripe  mango  would  be  a  relatively 
abstract  idea  to  the  Eskimo.  Things  are  concrete 
to  an  individual  in  proportion  as  they  come 
within  his  particular  sensory  experience  of  life. 
Things  he  has  seen  are  more  concrete  to  him  than 
things  he  has  merely  seen  pictures  of;  but  the 
latter  are  vastly  more  concrete  than  things  he 
has  merely  heard  about. 

The  motion  pictures  are  doing  much  to  increase 
the  available  sources  of  concrete  illustration. 
Niagara,  for  instance,  was  once  an  abstraction 
to  all  but  a  fortunate  few;  now  it  is  concrete  to 
millions  who  have  seen  it  in  the  "  movies  " ;  in- 
cidents of  the  World  War  will  always  seem  more 
concrete  to  most  people  than  those  of  any  earlier 
war;  Japanese  children  now  seem  to  most  of  us 
just  as  real  as  our  own,  and  surprisingly  like  them 
in  movement  and  facial  expression.  All  of  this 
helps  the  speaker  who  knows  how  to  make  use 
of  it. 

The  most  telling  sort  of  concreteness  is  of 


44    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

course  that  which  brings  the  experiences  of  the 
speaker  and  those  of  his  audience  into  closest  con- 
tact. Things  that  they  can  image  together  give 
rise  to  the  most  intimate  and  sympathetic  com- 
mon interest,  and  lay  the  strongest  possible  claim 
to  the  attention  of  both. 


Chapter   VII 
REINFORCEMENT 

THE  student  of  public  speaking  must  realize 
that  the  speaker's  problem  is  different 
from  that  of  the  writer,  and  in  some  respects 
more  difficult.  Too  often  he  imagines  that  it 
is  only  necessary  to  put  what  he  has  to  say  in  the 
form  of  a  clearly  worded  and  well  constructed 
composition,  and  then  speak  it  out  loud.  He  for- 
gets that  his  business  is  not  merely  to  express 
himself,  but  to  impress  his  audience. 

It  is  possible  for  a  writer  to  put  the  best  of  him- 
self into  a  book  and  then  go  away  and  forget 
about  it;  and  no  amount  of  indifference  on  the 
part  of  some  readers  will  injure  the  quality  of  the 
book  itself,  or  its  effectiveness  with  those  readers 
who  are  not  indifferent.  Some  writers  —  like 
George  Meredith,  for  instance  —  deliberately 
write  for  a  select  few,  knowing  that  the  general 
public  will  not  care  for  what  they  write;  but  the 
knowledge  does  not  embarrass  them  or  interfere 

45 


46    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

with  their  performance  in  the  least.  Some- 
times they  write  even  better  for  it. 

A  speaker,  however,  has  all  his  hearers  together 
in  one  room,  and  is  there  himself.  Any  inatten- 
tion, indifference,  or  hostility  on  the  part  of  even 
a  few  of  the  audience  endangers  his  effectiveness 
in  two  ways:  It  tends  to  become  contagious  and 
spread  to  others;  and  it  tends  to  react  on  the 
speaker  hunself,  diminishing  his  self-command, 
and  consequently  his  command  of  the  audience 
as  a  whole.  If  the  writer  feels  any  disconcerting 
reaction  from  his  readers  it  is  only  after  the  book 
is  done  and  out  of  his  hands ;  but  the  speaker  be- 
gins to  get  his  reactions  before  he  has  fairly 
begun,  and  many  a  speech  has  been  ruined  be- 
cause an  indifferent  minority  demoralized  the 
speaker. 

There  is  only  one  way  out:  The  speaker  must 
shoulder  the  entire  obligation  of  keeping  every- 
body interested  and  attentive  all  of  the  time. 

Of  course  some  students  will  say  that  this  is  too 
hard;  and  no  doubt  it  is  —  for  them.  Neverthe- 
less it  can  be  done. 

The  chief  obstacle  is  distraction. 

Distraction  is  primary  attention  gone  wrong. 
The  listener  finds  his  attention  engaged  by  stimuli 


REINFORCEMENT  47 

coming  from  sources  other  than  the  speaker  — 
sometimes  from  within  himself  and  sometimes 
from  without.  Occasionally  the  stimuli  even 
come  from  the  speaker,  but  from  the  wrong  part 
of  him  —  his  hands  or  feet,  for  instance,  instead 
of  his  brain. 

A  listener  is  more  subject  to  distraction  than 
a  reader.  In  his  relaxed  mood  he  gives  very- 
little  secondary  attention,  but  he  is  fair  game 
for  every  stimulus  to  primary  attention  regard- 
less of  its  source.  Every  time  somebody  coughs, 
or  the  door  opens,  or  shuts,  or  the  fire  engines  go 
past  outside,  he  is  distracted.  If  he  notices  a 
mannerism  or  peculiarity  of  the  speaker,  he  is  dis- 
tracted. If  what  the  speaker  says  reminds  him 
of  something  else,  he  is  distracted.  If  the  room 
is  too  hot  or  too  cold,  or  the  lighting  is  unpleas- 
ant, or  the  lady  sitting  next  to  him  has  a  vicious 
hat-pin,  or  a  fly  settles  on  the  bald  head  in  front 
of  him,  he  is  distracted.  And  every  time  he  is 
distracted  his  distraction  tends  to  communicate 
itself  to  those  near  by,  and  the  contagion  spreads. 

The  reader,  on  the  other  hand,  being  in  a 
more  concentrated  mood,  is  more  nearly  proof 
against  this  distraction.  There  are,  as  a  rule, 
fewer  sources  of  distraction  about  him,  because 


48    HANDBOOK    OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

there  are  fewer  people;  and  even  when  there  is 
plenty  of  distraction  he  has  better  means  of  fight- 
ing it.  He  can,  to  some  extent,  choose  his  own 
time  and  place  to  suit  his  mood,  instead  of  having 
to  fit  his  mood  to  the  occasion.  He  can  usually 
adjust  the  temperature  and  lights  to  suit  him, 
and  pick  out  the  most  comfortable  chair;  and  if 
there  is  no  comfortable  place  handy  he  can  post- 
pone his  reading  or  go  somewhere  else.  He  can 
set  his  own  pace,  reading  rapidly  or  slowly  as  he 
prefers ;  he  can  read  much  or  little  at  a  time ;  and 
when  he  is  distracted,  or  when  he  is  puzzled  by 
the  text,  he  can  re-read  as  often  as  he  pleases  until 
he  has  mastered  the  passage  or  caught  up  the 
broken  thread  of  the  discourse. 

Compare  this  with  the  plight  of  the  listener, 
and  you  see  why  the  speaker's  task  is  not  easy. 
In  a  large  audience  the  room  will  be  too  hot  for 
some  and  too  cold  for  others;  the  lights  will  be 
bad  for  some;  some  will  be  too  near  the  doors, 
others  too  far  from  the  speaker;  some  will  be  in 
one  mood  and  others  in  another;  some  near- 
sighted, others  far-sighted;  some  in  good  health, 
others  in  bad;  some  fresh,  others  tired.  If  the 
speaker  talks  rapidly  he  will  confuse  some  of  his 
hearers;  if  he  talks  slowly  he  will  bore  others;  and 


REINFORCEMENT  49 

except  on  the  most  informal  occasions  the  listener 
who  has  failed  to  understand  a  point,  or  has  been 
interrupted  or  distracted,  will  allow  his  attention 
to  lapse  permanently  rather  than  ask  the  speaker 
to  repeat  a  passage. 

Obviously  the  speaker  cannot  forestall  all  of 
these  sources  of  inattention.  Momentary  dis- 
tractions are  bound  to  occur.  He  cannot  prevent 
them;  therefore  he  must  fight  them. 

Whole-hearted  attention  on  his  part  will  help; 
so  also  will  directness  and  sense  of  communica- 
tion; and  so  will  the  concreteness  which  makes 
so  strongly  for  primary  attention.  But  most 
important  in  this  connection  is  the  simple  device 
of  reinforcement  of  ideas. 

Audiences,  though  passive,  are  generally  well 
disposed  and  rather  anxious  to  listen.  Given  a 
fair  chance  they  will  recover  from  their  distrac- 
tions and  renew  their  attention.  But  frequently 
the  speaker  does  not  give  them  a  fair  chance ;  he 
says  everything  just  once,  and  leaves  it  to  the 
listener  to  catch  it  if  he  can. 

What  student  has  not  had  the  experience  of 
coming  into  a  classroom  late  and  being  unable  to 
discover  what  the  teacher  was  talking  about  until 
the  end  of  the  hour?     A  lecturer  in  the  history  of 


50    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

English  literature,  for  instance,  will  mention  the 
name  of  a  writer  just  once  and  then  talk  about 
him  for  from  twenty  to  fifty-five  minutes.  In 
this  case  the  late-comer  is  not  the  only  one  in 
difiiculty;  unfaiTiiliar  proper  names  are  always 
hard  to  catch,  and  perhaps  half  the  students  pres- 
ent will  miss  that  writer's  name.  For  a  few 
moments  they  will  listen  eagerly  in  the  hope  of 
catching  it  on  repetition,  but  if  the  repetition 
does  not  come,  who  can  blame  them  for  losing  in- 
terest? Every  time  a  listener  is  distracted  for  a 
moment  and  misses  something  he  goes  through  a 
similar  experience. 

A  really  effective  speaker  reckons  with  this 
condition.  He  realizes  that  there  is  a  constant 
leakage  in  his  speech:  some  of  his  ideas  are  es- 
caping some  of  his  listeners  all  of  the  time.  To 
counteract  it  he  resorts  to  a  piling  up  of  effect, 
to  a  constant  reinforcement  of  ideas,  by  more 
repetition  and  more  illustration  than  a  writer 
ever  has  need  for.  His  motto  is,  "  Hit  them  again 
in  the  same  place." 

Ideas  may  be  reinforced  in  many  different 
ways.  Crude  repetition  is  the  most  obvious;  but 
it  is  by  no  means  to  be  despised,  especially  in 
the  case  of  proper  names,  pregnant  phrases,  or 


REINFORCEMENT  51 

statements  of  fundamental  import.  Reiteration, 
or  repetition  in  different  words,  is  an  excellent 
method  of  reinforcement  and  often  a  great  aid 
to  clearness.  Concrete  illustration,  one  of  the 
most  valuable  methods,  has  already  been  dis- 
cussed. Parallelism  of  construction  is  a  method 
particularly  useful  in  reinforcing  relationships  of 
ideas.  The  use  of  figures  of  speech  is  helpful. 
Testimony  —  quotation  of  the  opinions  and  ob- 
servations of  others  —  is  a  well  known  method, 
sometimes  relatively  overworked  by  students. 
And  if  nothing  else  will  serve,  plain  "  harping  " 
is  better  than  no  reinforcement  at  all,  although 
it  is  quite  possible  to  harp  on  one  idea  too  long, 
destroying  much  of  the  good  accomplished. 
Sometimes  a  speaker  will  convince  an  audience 
and  then  spoil  it  all  by  over-reinforcement,  until 
the  boredom  engendered  obscures  the  conviction 
or  wipes  it  out  altogether.  But  there  is  more 
danger  of  boredom  in  the  kind  of  harping  that 
comes  from  vagueness,  or  lack  of  ideas,  or  from 
accidental  repetition,  than  in  that  which  comes 
from  intentional  reinforcement  of  ideas. 

The  method  of  reinforcement  is  a  matter  to 
be  governed  by  circumstances;  the  principle  is 
universal  and  essential.    Because  of  distractions 


52    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

and  because  of  the  mental  inertia  of  audiences, 
things  must  be  pounded  home.  A  well-known 
educator  says  that  he  never  expects  anything  to 
sink  in  until  he  has  said  it  at  least  six  times. 
His  motto  also,  you  see,  is,  "  Hit  them  again  in 
the  same  place." 


Chapter  VIII 
PERSUASION 

THE  speaker  desires  above  almost  every- 
thing else  to  be  able  to  influence  his  au- 
dience, in  accordance  with  his  purpose,  whatever 
it  happens  to  be. 

There  are,  roughly,  two  methods  of  influencing 
people,  the  emotional  and  the  intellectual.  Many 
psychologists  insist  that  there  is  no  real  dis- 
tinction; that  reason  and  emotion  are  insepa- 
rably connected  and  that  each  is  merely  a  re- 
action of  the  whole  mind.  This  may  be  true, 
but  there  is  certainly  a  distinction  in  method  of 
approach,  and  this  distinction  is  useful  to  the 
student. 

It  is  customary  to  speak  of  the  emotional 
method  as  persuasion,  the  intellectual  as  argu- 
mentation or  conviction.^  Persuasion  may  be 
defined  as  the  attempt  to  influence  others  by 
emotional  means;  that  is,  by  appealing  to  their 
instincts,    feelings,    or    sentiments,    rather    than 

1  Most  writers  prefer  the  word  conviction,  and  use  the 
term  argumentation  to  cover  both  conviction  and  persuasion. 
To  me,  conviction  means  a  result  rather  than  a  method  or 
process. 

53 


54    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

their  reasoning  powers.  It  is  by  no  means  to 
be  thought  of  as  limited  to  obvious  emotional 
outbursts  —  to  heroics,  and  "  crocodile  tears  " ; 
more  often  it  is  nothing  but  sincere  feeling 
quietly  interwoven  with  the  thought  of  the  dis- 
course. It  may  even  be  interwoven  with  argu- 
mentation itself,  in  the  sense  that  a  sound 
argument  may  be  put  persuasively  rather  than 
repulsively. 

Effective  persuasion  rests,  of  course,  upon  the 
speaker's  understanding  and  use  of  the  instincts, 
sentiments,  and  feelings  that  actually  exist  in 
mankind.  These  are  many  and  complicated,  and 
their  relative  power  varies  widely  with  circum- 
stances. They  will  repay  much  study.  But 
study  alone  will  not  help  the  speaker,  unless  at 
the  same  time  he  cultivate  sympathy.  Many 
speakers  understand  human  nature  and  human 
motives,  yet  fail  to  persuade  because  they  are 
cold  and  impersonal,  or  even  contemptuous  of 
the  motives  they  pretend  to  appeal  to. 

Underlying  all  human  motives  are  the  basic 
instincts  of  self-preservation  and  perpetuation 
of  species.  Crude  and  obvious  instincts  in  the 
lower  animals,  they  manifest  themselves  in  man 
with  all  sorts  of  disguises  and  refinements,  but 
they  are  there  just  the  same. 


PERSUASION  55 

Self-preservation  is  the  strongest  motive  there 
is,  and  it  is  less  carefully  disguised  than  perpet- 
uation of  species.  "  One  must  live,"  says  the 
modern  man  as  an  apology  for  all  sorts  of  selfish 
behavior.  But  he  does  not  make  the  apology 
until  he  is  cornered;  he  prefers,  if  possible,  to 
deceive  himself  and  others  by  pretending  that 
it  is  the  safety  of  his  family  or  country  that  he 
is  concerned  about,  rather  than  his  own  safety. 
Sometimes,  of  course,  this  is  true;  his  instinct 
of  self-preservation  has  given  way  to  a  higher 
impulse,  growing  out  of  his  education  or  train- 
ing. It  is  more  apt  to  be  true  of  cultivated 
people  than  of  brutish  people;  it  is  one  of  the 
definitions  of  a  gentleman.  It  is  also  more  apt 
to  be  true  of  everybody  in  times  of  emotional 
stress  —  war-time,  for  instance  —  than  in  times 
of  placid  "  normalcy."  In  war-time  even  the 
lower  orders  of  human  beings  will  set  self-pres- 
ervation aside  for  the  sentiment  of  patriotism  or 
of  moral  indignation.  Generally,  however,  there 
is  much  more  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
in  human  motives  than  appears  on  the  surface. 

So  likewise  with  the  instinct  to  perpetuation 
of  species,  except  that  this  is  almost  always  con- 
cealed, since  education  has  taught  us  to  think 


56    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

of  the  instinct  itself  as  base.  But  we  think  very 
highly  of  some  of  the  motives  derived  from  this 
instinct,  including  maternal  and  paternal  affec- 
tion, love  of  home,  the  desire  of  each  sex  to 
appear  to  advantage  in  the  eyes  of  the  other,  the 
chivalrous  impulses  of  men  toward  women,  and 
many  others.  The  instinct  has  simply  been  re- 
fined out  of  its  original  semblance  by  centuries 
of  education ;  it  has  not  been  destroyed. 

These  two  basic  instincts,  in  conjunction  with 
educational  influences  drawn  from  history,  tradi- 
tion, religion,  philosophy,  literature,  and  law, 
have  served  to  plant  in  mankind  a  great  variety 
of  impulses,  so  deeply  rooted  as  to  constitute 
automatic  and  powerful  motives. 

Next  to  the  orginal  instincts  themselves,  one 
of  the  strongest  of  these  motives  is  the  impulse 
to  acquire  property.  It  is  often  spoken  of  as  an 
instinct  in  itself,  but  it  is  undoubtedly  composite. 
Self-preservation  is  at  the  root  of  it,  for  human 
institutions  have  so  developed  that  one  must 
acquire  some  property  in  order  to  live.  Love  of 
adornment  plays  a  part  —  originating  perhaps  in 
the  sex  instinct.  The  manifold  pleasures  that 
money  will  buy,  the  love  of  giving  to  others, 
the  love  of  power,  all  contribute,  each  being  com- 


PERSUASION  57 

posite  in  itself;  and  in  addition  there  is  undoubt- 
edly a  love  of  possession  for  possession's  sake, 
which  is  found  in  savages  but  increases  with  ma- 
terial civilization.  But  the  great  masses  of  man- 
kind, barely  able  to  meet  the  cost  of  living,  are 
driven  by  the  law  of  self-preservation  to  a  greater 
interest  in  property  than  they  might  otherwise 
show;  and  the  speaker  can  make  effective  use  of 
this  when  addressing  an  audience  of  hard-work- 
ing, every-day  people. 

Next  in  strength,  if  not  in  prevalence,  is  prob- 
ably the  will  to  power.  This  is  not  felt  so  much 
by  those  who  have  never  had  their  appetites 
whetted  by  the  taste  of  power ;  but  among  a  cer- 
tain class  of  successful  men-of-the-world  it  is  al- 
most the  dominating  motive.  Men  of  great 
wealth  and  influence  will  quite  generally  tell  you 
that  they  do  not  care  about  making  more  money 
for  its  own  sake,  or  for  what  it  will  buy,  but  that 
they  stay  in  the  game  of  big  business,  or  politics, 
because  they  enjoy  the  sense  of  control  —  control 
over  other  men,  over  systems  or  institutions,  over 
forces  greater  than  themselves.  The  impulse  is 
not  necessarily  selfish ;  it  is  a  form  of  aspiration, 
and  has  done  much  to  stimulate  real  progress.  It 
is  varied  but  universal.    In  one  man  it  will  be  the 


58    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC    SPEAKING 

thrill  of  driving  an  automobile  or  sailing  a  yacht; 
in  another  the  genius  of  organization ;  in  another 
t/he  brutish  instinct  of  the  bully.  But  it  is  con- 
scious and  cumulative  in  proportion  to  experi- 
ence, and  the  speaker  will  find  he  can  appeal  to  it 
most  powerfully  in  an  audience  of  fairly  success- 
ful people. 

Another  strong  motive  is  personal  pride.  One 
likes  to  be  thought  well  of  by  others.  This  may 
be  partly  ulterior;  a  business  man,  for  instance, 
may  wish  to  preserve  a  reputation  for  square 
dealing  as  a  means  of  encouraging  trade. 
"  Honesty  is  the  best  policy  "  is  a  popular,  if  im- 
moral, doctrine.  But  deep  down  in  every  indi- 
vidual who  has  felt  the  influence  of  civilized 
thought  is  a  real  desire  to  be  held  in  good  repute 
—  even  in  those  who  have  no  particular  ambition 
for  fame  or  power.  The  cynical  and  worldly-wise 
often  scoff  at  it  and  disavow  it;  but  they  are 
scoffing  at  "  sour  grapes,"  or  whistling  to  keep 
their  courage  up.  A  saloon-keeper  who  was  some- 
what looked  down  upon  by  his  neighbors  not  only 
because  of  his  occupation  but  because  of  certain 
sharp  practices  for  which  he  was  noted,  used  to 
boast  that  he  did  not  care  what  people  thought  of 
him  so  long  as  he  made  money  and  kept  within 


PERSUASION  59 

the  law;  but  when  he  died  it  was  found  that  he 
had  willed  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  for  the 
erection  of  a  handsome  monument  over  his  grave. 
That  gave  him  away;  he  had  jeered  at  honor  in 
life,  and  then  made  a  pitiful  attempt  to  buy  it 
when  he  was  dead. 

Almost  as  universal  as  the  motives  so  far  men- 
tioned, and  the  most  powerful  of  all  in  some  in- 
dividuals, is  the  motive  of  affection,  or  personal 
attachment.  Since  it  is  largely  an  individual 
matter  it  cannot  always  be  made  use  of  by  the 
speaker  addressing  an  audience;  yet  there  are 
times  when  the  appeal  to  men  on  behalf  of  the 
women  they  love,  or  to  parents  on  behalf  of  their 
children,  will  be  the  best  possible  means  of  per- 
suasion. 

It  would  not  be  possible,  in  this  brief  chapter, 
to  discuss  all  the  manifold  impulses  and  motives 
of  men.  Devotion  to  God,  love  of  country,  sense 
of  duty,  loyalty  to  tradition,  civic  pride,  sense  of 
beauty,  sense  of  gratitude,  sportsmanship,  esprit 
de  corps,  good  taste,  honesty,  moral  indignation 
—  these  are  just  some  of  them.  The  speaker's 
task  is  not  merely  to  study  them  and  theorize 
about  them,  but  to  make  use  of  them;  to  appeal 
to  them  in  his  audience;  to  make  his  thoughts 


60    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

and  opinions  acceptable  by  bringing  thean  into 
harmony  with  the  impulses  most  strongly  at  work 
in  the  audience. 

To  that  end  he  must  never  cease  his  study  of 
human  beings  and  their  behavior.  He  must  train 
himself  to  sense  the  impulses  in  his  audience,  and 
to  turn  them  to  account  gently,  sympathetically, 
and  unobtrusively,— and  let  us  add,  honestly.  He 
must  remember  that  the  finest  sort  of  persuasion 
is  the  negative  sort  that  we  call  tact ;  which  con- 
sists not  in  an  ostentatious  appeal  to  favorable 
impulses,  but  in  considerate  avoidance  of  unfavor- 
able ones;  in  putting  unattractive,  even  un- 
pleasant, truths  inoffensively.  And  finally  he 
must  cultivate  the  virtue  of  tolerance;  he  must 
learn  to  appreciate  the  other  fellow's  point  of 
view.  Only  by  so  doing  can  he  hope  to  make  the 
other  fellow  appreciate  his. 

None  of  these  things  can  be  learned  in  a  niin- 
ute,  and  none  of  them  can  be  applied  coldly,  at 
will,  and  laid  aside  when  not  wanted.  The  speaker 
who  attempts  it  is  inviting  disaster;  he  is  deceiv- 
ing himself  and  trying  to  deceive  others.  He 
must  play  fair,  and  to  do  so  he  must  make  these 
things  habitual ;  he  must  live  them,  on  and  off  the 
platform. 


Chapter   IX 
ARGUMENTATION 

ARGUMENTATION,  or  conviction,  is  the 
attempt  to  influence  others  by  intellec- 
tual processes;  to  convince  by  reasoning. 

Speeches  which  are  devoid  of  everything  except 
argumentation  are  perhaps  not  very  common; 
but  every  speech  which  has  for  its  purpose  to 
convince  is  basically  argumentative,  although  the 
rational  processes  may  be  completely  fused  with 
the  persuasive  ones.  With  any  audience  but  a 
coldly  intellectual  one  the  fusing  is  necessary 
and  desirable;  argumentation  and  persuasion 
work  best  hand  in  hand.  But  they  can  best  be 
studied  separately,  the  processes  involved  being 
by  no  means  simple  even  then. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  cover  the  principles 
of  argumentation  in  a  single  chapter,  or  even  in 
a  whole  book  the  size  of  this  one.  A  four-hundred- 
page  text-book  is  hardly  large  enough  to  cover 
them  thoroughly,  and  a  one-semester  course  in 

61 


62    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

argumentation  is  always  too  short.  The  student 
who  would  learn  to  speak  effectively  is  advised  to 
make  an  adequate  study  of  argumentation  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment;  if  he  cannot  take  a 
course  in  the  subject  he  can  at  least  read  one  of 
the  many  excellent  text-books.^ 

My  purpose  here  is  merely  to  suggest  the  basic 
nature  of  the  reasoning  process,  point  out  one  or 
two  of  the  commonest  pitfalls,  and  make  a  few 
recommendations  for  special  study. 

Most  teachers  of  argumentation  advocate  a 
course  in  logic  to  precede  or  accompany  the 
study  of  argumentation.  This  is  an  excellent 
plan,  and  I  heartily  recommend  it;  but  I  recom- 
mend even  more  heartily  a  study  or  review  of  the 
subject  of  plane  geometry.  In  plane  geometry 
we  see  the  rational  process,  not  in  theory  but  in 
practice;  and  we  see  it  in  its  simplest  and  sound- 
est form,  applied  to  the  materials  of  an  exact 
science. 

Consider  this  process  as  seen  in  geometry.  We 
begin  with  axioms  (self-evident  truths)  and 
postulates  (statements  so  clearly  derived  from 
the  axioms  as  to  be  universally  acceptable),  and 
proceed  through  a  succession  of  clearly  demon- 

1  See  Appendix  B. 


ARGUMENTATION  65 

strated  theorems  in  the  order  of  increasing  must 
culty.  For  the  proof  of  each  theorem  we  m  bp 
have: 

1.  Materials  of  proof,  or  facts  in  evidence,  includ- 
ing (a)  axioms,  (b)  postulates,  (c)  previously  proved 
theorems,  —  but  nothing  else. 

2.  A  clear  demonstration  (usually  illustrated)  of 
the  reasoning  process  by  which  the  mind  infers  the 
truth  of  the  proposition  from  the  truth  of  the  facts 
in  evidence. 

3.  A  conclusion,  consisting  of  a  statement  of  the 
proposition  proved. 

In  geometry,  dealing  as  it  does  with  exact 
materials,  we  see  this  process  clearly  in  every 
theorem,  no  matter  how  difficult.  In  argumenta- 
tion, dealing  with  human  affairs  in  all  their  com- 
plexities and  imperfections,  we  do  not  see  it  so 
clearly,  but  it  is  there  just  the  same.  There  can 
be  no  true  argumentation  without  it.  In  every 
piece  of  sound  argumentation  we  have : 

1.  The  materials  of  proof,  generally  spoken  of  as 
the  evidence. 

2.  The  process  of  proof,  or  demonstration,  gen- 
erally spoken  of  as  the  argument. 

3.  The  proposition  to  be  proved,  which  when 
proved  becomes  the  conclusion. 


62    HAN^DBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

argume  study  of  argumentation  falls  naturally  into 
whaee  parts: 

1.  Analysis:  the  study  of  propositions,  and  of  the 
issues  involved  in  them. 

2.  The  study  of  evidence. 

3.  The  study  of  argument. 

In  geometry  there  is  very  little  need  of  analy- 
sis in  the  sense  here  intended ;  the  proposition  is 
by  pre-arrangement  simple  and  definite;  the  is- 
sues are  fairly  clear  in  the  proposition  as  defined. 

But  in  argumentation  the  proposition  is  apt 
to  be  complex,  and  is  almost  sure  to  be  obscured 
by  masses  of  contentious  discussion  most  of  which 
has  really  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  Before 
one  argues  he  must  find  out  exactly  what  he  is 
arguing  about,  and  to  do  so  he  must  analyze.  He 
must  examine  the  history  of  the  question,  includ- 
ing the  immediate  cause  of  discussion ;  he  must  de- 
termine what  the  proposition  really  is;  he  must 
see  where  the  burden  of  proof  lies;  he  must  con- 
sider what  others  have  said  for  and  against  the 
proposition;  he  must  sift  this  material  out, 
eliminating  what  is  irrelevant,  what  is  admitted 
by  both  sides,  and  what  he  is  willing  to  grant;  and 
he  must  find  the  issues  —  that  is,  those  points 


ARGUMENTATION  65 

in  the  proposition  which  the  affirmative  must 
prove  in  order  to  establish  a  case.  Finally,  he 
must  determine  upon  which  of  those  issues  to 
stake  his  own  case. 

This,  in  one  paragraph,  is  the  problem  of  analy- 
sis, a  problem  demanding  months  of  careful  study. 
The  importance  of  it  will  be  seen  in  the  fact 
that  some  cases  practically  prove  themselves 
when  once  clearly  analyzed.  I  think  I  can  say 
without  fear  of  contradiction  that  failure  to  ana- 
lyze correctly  occasions  more  disasters  to  student 
speeches  than  failure  to  argue  plausibly. 

The  second  study,  that  of  evidence,  is  no  less 
extensive,  but  in  a  way  it  can  be  summed  up  in 
a  single  principle:  No  statement  may  be  offered 
as  evidence  of  the  truth  of  something  else  unless 
it  is  itself  acceptable  as  true;  acceptable  to  the 
person  to  be  convinced,  not  merely  to  the 
speaker. 

In  geometry  one  may  use  as  evidence  only 
axioms,  postulates,  and  previously  proved  propo- 
sitions. 

In  argumentation  one  may  use  only  axiomatic 
assertions,  or  assertions  which,  like  postulates, 
are  acceptable  as  true,  or  statements  previously 
proved  or  which  the  speaker  is  prepared  to  prove 


66    HANDBOOK   OF  PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

and  does  prove  immediately.  To  use  as  evidence 
a  statement  that  does  not  satisfy  this  rule  is  to 
build  the  structure  of  the  argument  on  sand; 
sound  reasoning  from  unsound  premises  is  utterly 
valueless. 

Given  evidentiary  statements  which  are  accept- 
able as  true,  there  still  remains  the  question  of 
their  relative  weight.  Some  kinds  of  evidence  are 
more  convincing  than  others.  On  this  subject 
much  may  be  learned  from  the  practice  of  the 
courts,  in  which  certain  classes  of  evidence  — 
such  as  "  hearsay  evidence  "  —  are  barred  as  un- 
trustworthy; and  in  which  certain  other  classes 

—  such  as  undesigned  testimony,  and  testi- 
mony given  against  the  interests  of  the  witness 

—  are  considered  especially  weighty.  The  stu- 
dent will  find  the  chapter  on  evidence  in  almost 
any  text-book  on  argumentation  a  piece  of  very 
fascinating  reading. 

The  third  study  is  the  study  of  the  reasoning 
process  itself;  the  study  of  argument.  It  is  here 
that  logic  plays  a  part  —  or  ought  to.  Unfortu- 
nately many  students  of  logic  seem  to  think 
of  it  as  a  pleasant  game  of  charts  on  paper;  some- 
thing to  amuse  like  a  Chinese  puzzle,  or  to  de- 
velop the  intellect,  like  chess.    It  never  occurs  to 


ARGUMENTATION  67 

them  that  the  syllogism  is  anything  real;  it  would 
surprise  them  to  be  told  that  they  use  syllogisms 
every  day. 

The  syllogism,  technicalities  aside,  is  simply 
the  basic  form  of  deductive  reasoning.  All 
reasoning  is  either  inductive  or  deductive;  that 
is,  it  is  either  a  generalization  from  particular 
premises,  or  a  particular  application  of  a  general 
premise.  The  syllogism  consists  of  the  general 
premise,  plus  a  particular  premise  defining  the 
particular  application,  plus  a  conclusion  stating 
the  particular  truth  derived:  All  men  are 
mortal;      I     am     a     man;     therefore     I     am 

mortal. 

The  chief  danger  of  error  in  inductive  reason- 
ing is  the  danger  of  too  hasty  or  too  careless  a 
generalization;  in  ordinary  English  we  call  it 
"  jumping  to  conclusions,"  and  everybody  does  it, 
more  or  less. 

The  chief  danger  in  deductive  reasoning  is  the 
danger  of  committing  one  of  the  many  well-known 
fallacies  to  which  the  syllogism  so  easily  lends 
itself.  No  one  who  wishes  to  influence  others 
through  speaking  can  afford  to  be  ignorant  of 
these  fallacies.  "  Begging  the  question,"  "  illicit 
major,"  "undistributed  middle,"   "  argumentum 


68    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC  SPEAKING 

ad  hominem  "  —  these  are  not  fanciful  terms  in- 
vented by  the  teacher  to  play  with  in  the  class- 
room; these  are  real  errors  in  thought  which  one 
hears  all  about  him  in  the  trolley-cars  and  on  the 
street-corners,  and  some  of  which  every  student 
of  public  speaking  commits  almost  every  time 
he  opens  his  mouth.  The  mistake  most  students 
make  is  in  supposing  that  errors  in  reasoning  are 
easy  to  see  and  easy  to  avoid,  and  that  all  one 
needs  is  a  little  common  sense.  On  the  contrary, 
they  are  often  plausible,  tricky,  and  deceiving, 
and  more  than  a  match  for  "  common  "  sense, 
which  is,  of  course,  a  very  poor  sort  of  sense. 
What  is  needed  is  uncommon  sense  —  good  sense 
in  the  superlative  degree  —  backed  by  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  wiles  of  fallacious  reasoning. 

One  reason  why  the  student  should  not  neglect 
the  study  of  argumentation  is  that  it  has  some  of 
the  qualities  of  a  boomerang.  If  you  do  not  hit 
the  other  fellow  with  it  it  will  come  back  and 
hit  you.  Once  you  have  essayed  to  influence 
others  by  reasoning  with  them  you  must  carry 
it  through  successfully,  or  the  reaction  will  more 
than  wipe  out  your  advantage.  It  will  leave 
your  audience  more  thoroughly  convinced  than 
ever  that  they  are  right  and  you  are  wrong.    Con- 


ARGUMENTATION  69 

viction  that  does  not  convince  is  even  worse  than 
persuasion  that  does  not  persuade. 

The  student  must  bear  in  mind,  also,  that 
argumentation  is  not  confined  to  formal  debates, 
or  even  to  speeches  which  as  a  whole  have  con- 
viction as  their  purpose.  In  the  ordinary  give- 
and-take  of  all  kind  of  speeches  there  is  con- 
tinual argumentation,  even  though  much  of  it  is 
concealed.  The  speaker  is  being  constantly  re- 
quired to  answer  the  unspoken  question  and  re- 
fute the  unspoken  objection  as  it  occurs;  to  argue 
his  way  as  he  goes.  To  do  so  successfully  he  has 
just  as  much  need  of  sound  reasoning  processes 
as  he  could  possibly  have  in  formal  debate. 


Chapter   X 
DRIFT 

IN  THIS  chapter  and  the  next  we  have  to  con- 
sider two  very  practical  problems  of  per- 
sonality and  method  as  well  as  of  principle.  These 
have  to  do  with  the  qualities  of  drift  and  humor 
in  public  speaking. 

No  comment  is  more  often  heard  in  criticism 
of  a  speaker  than  the  simple  question,  "  What 
is  he  driving  at?  " 

Failure  of  the  speaker  to  make  his  drift  clear 
may  arise  from  any  one,  or  any  combination,  of 
a  number  of  causes: 

1.  It  may  arise  from  an  actual  lack  of  unity  in 
the  subject  matter.  The  speaker  may  really  be  talk- 
ing about  several  different  things  without  any  very 
clear  idea  as  to  which  is  the  main  thing. 

2.  It  may  arise  from  vagueness  of  purpose  on  the 
part  of  the  speaker.  He  may  have  a  unified  subject, 
but  no  clear  concept  of  what  he  is  trying  to  do  to  his 
audience.  This  is  one  of  the  commonest  causes. 
When  I  have  occasion  to  ask^  "•  student  speaker  what 
he  is  driving  at  it  is  very  seldom  indeed  that  he 

70 


DRIFT  71 

answers  me  with  a  statement  of  purpose.^  When  pur- 
pose is  uppermost  in  a  speaker's  mind  he  generally 
manages  to  make  his  drift  clear. 

3.  It  may  arise  from  the  failure  of  the  speaker 
to  define  his  subject  at  the  beginning,  when  the  ob- 
scurity or  complexity  of  the  subject  makes  such  defi- 
nition necessary. 

4.  It  may  arise  from  incoherence.  The  speaker 
may  have  a  single  purpose  and  single  subject,  but 
may  so  bungle  the  construction  and  arrangement  of 
his  speech  that  one  finds  it  impossible  to  follow  him. 

5.  It  may  arise  from  poor  emphasis;  that  is,  he 
may  have  his  leading  thoughts  buried  in  inconspic- 
uous places,  or  he  may  present  them  without  sufficient 
heightening  of  manner,  and  so  encourage  his  audience 
to  miss  everything  of  importance  and  to  puzzle  over 
the  trifles. 

6.  It  may  arise  from  too  much  abstraction,  and  too 
little  concreteness.^ 

7.  It  may  arise  from  a  lack  of  climax;  that  is,  the 
speaker  may  have  failed  to  arrange  his  thoughts  in 
the  order  of  increasing  importance  up  to  the  point  at 
which  he  is  ready  to  begin  his  conclusion. 

8.  It  may  arise  from  monotony.  Wlien  a  speaker 
lacks  variety  in  pitch,  force,  or  tempo,  or  in  manner, 
it  is  easy  for  the  listener  to  fall  into  the  hypnotic  state 
previously  described,^  and  in  that  state  he  naturally 
loses  the  drift  of  the  discourse. 

9.  It  may  arise  from  over-glibness  on  the  part  of 
the  speaker;  words  flow  from  him  so  freely  that  the 

1  F      Chapter  III. 

2  See  Chapter  VI. 

3  See  Chapter  V. 


72    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

audience  is  nearly  drowned  in  the  torrent,  and  loses 
all  sense  of  direction. 

10.  It  may  arise  from  the  speaker's  own  vague- 
ness or  uncertainty  of  mind,  whether  real  or  apparent; 
the  speaker  will  seem  to  be  feeling  his  way,  hesi- 
tatingly, and  with  no  firm  grip  on  himself.  The  au- 
dience soon  catches  his  spirit,  wonders  what  he  is 
driving  at,  and  wonders  if  he  knows. 

11.  It  may  arise  from  insufficient  reinforcement  of 
ideas,  so  that  points  essential  to  an  understanding  of 
the  speaker's  drift  are  constantly  escaping  the 
audience.^ 

12.  Besides  all  of  these  fairly  obvious  causes,  and 
many  others,  it  may  arise,  and  often  does  arise,  from 
a  much  more  subtile  cause.  The  speaker  himself 
may  not  feel  sufficiently  the  need  of  making  his  drift 
clear.  He  may  know  his  subject  and  his  purpose  well 
enough;  his  speech  may  have  a  coherence  and  an  em- 
phasis that  would  be  perfectly  apparent  in  a  steno- 
graphic report;  he  may  be  making  plentiful  use  of 
concrete  illustrations,  with  variety  and  interest  at 
all  points;  he  may — on  paper  —  have  perfect  struc- 
ture and  climax,  each  idea  having  a  function  in  con- 
tributing to  the  main  thought,  with  the  threads  drawn 
together  perfectly  at  the  end;  and  still  people  may 
be  yawning  all  through  his  speech  and  saying, 
"  Well  .    .    .  what  is  he  driving  at?  " 

The  fact  is  that  there  are  ways  and  means  of  con- 
veying ideas  —  or  not  conveying  them  —  too  subtile 
for  analysis.  What  is  on  the  speaker's  mind  some- 
how gets  to  the  audience,  though  his  words  may  not 

1  See  Chapter  VII. 


DRIFT  73 

exactly  convey  it.  If  he  allows  his  mind  to  wander 
from  its  main  course,  to  stop  and  play  with  ideas  by 
the  way,  to  over-elaborate  minor  points,  or  to  dwell 
upon  himself,  even  though  nothing  he  does  is  very 
wrong,  his  audience  will  sense  the  state  of  his  mind, 
and  will  lose  consciousness  of  his  drift,  just  as  he 
does.  But  if  he  keeps  constantly  aware  of  his  own 
objective,  and  alive  to  the  necessity  of  having  his 
audience  follow  him,  he  is  very  likely  to  make  them 
feel  the  drift  as  they  should. 

Students  are  often  troubled  by  this  idea  of 
drift,  confusing  it  with  such  things  as  unity,  or 
climax.  One  will  say,  when  I  ask  him  what  he 
is  driving  at :  "  Well,  if  I  tell  you  now  there  will 
be  nothing  left  to  say  at  the  end.  I  might  as  well 
stop  speaking."  It  seems  to  him  that  he  should 
keep  something  back  in  order  to  preserve  the  sus- 
pense. So  he  should.  But  the  audience  does  not 
ask  to  have  everything  told  at  once;  it  does  not 
want  the  conclusion  at  the  beginning.  That  is 
not  what  I  mean  by  drift.  The  audience  merely 
wants  to  be  kept  aware  that  there  is  a  conclusion, 
and  that  things  are  drawing  towards  it,  and  that 
everything  is  contributing  to  it  and  bringing  it 
nearer.    There  is  no  anti-climax  in  that. 

Another  student,  having  finished  his  speech 
and  having  been  accused  of  lack  of  drift,  will 


74    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

point  out  that  everything  in  the  speech  really  did 
contribute  to  the  conclusion,  and  that  he  brought 
it  all  together  in  the  end.  But  that  is  unity,  not 
drift.  Drift  is  not  a  matter  of  retrospect;  it  is 
something  the  listener  wants  to  feel  every  minute 
of  the  time.  Though  hard  to  define,  it  is  easy  to 
feel  —  when  it  is  there.  When  it  is  not,  every- 
body squirms  and  murmurs,  "  What  is  he  driving 
at?" 


Chapter  XI 
HUMOR 

IT  WOULD  be  impossible  for  the  public 
speaker  to  take  his  task  too  seriously,  but  it 
is  quite  possible  for  him  to  take  it  too  soberly; 
and  he  generally  does. 

A  student  may  be  known  at  home  as  the  village 
cut-up,  and  keep  everybody  in  gales  of  laughter 
whenever  he  is  out  in  company;  but  when  he 
rises  to  speak  before  his  classmates  in  college  he 
behaves  more  like  the  village  undertaker. 

There  seems  to  be  a  popular  delusion  to  the 
effect  that  one  must  suppress  the  temptation  to 
be  humorous  in  order  to  appear  dignified.  It 
rests,  of  course,  on  a  misconception  of  humor; 
people  think  of  humor  as  something  frivolous, 
even  a  little  cheap,  and  are  rather  ashamed  to 
give  way  to  it.  Those  who  make  a  habit  of  in- 
dulging in  the  cheapest  types  of  humor  in  private 
are  most  apt  to  feel  that  way  about  it;  they  are 
unable  to  conceive  of  such  a  thing  as  dignified 
humor,  being  so  used  to  the  undignified  kind. 

75 


76    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

The  really  humorous  speaker  who  keeps  his  audi- 
ences chuckling,  yet  at  the  same  time  earnestly 
appreciative,  is  generally  found  to  be  a  quiet 
soul  in  private  life,  incapable  of  ribald  jest. 

True  humor  is  hard  to  define.  Most  people 
agree  that  it  is  something  deeper  than  mere  wit, 
or  mere  horseplay;  that  it  is  closely  allied  to 
pathos;  that  it  is  universal  and  human;  that  it 
is  rather  a  matter  of  attitude  than  of  things.  One 
may  drag  in  a  joke,  and  perhaps  raise  a  laugh,  yet 
fail  utterly  of  being  humorous ;  on  the  other  hand 
one  may  talk  sincerely  of  serious  things  with  just 
a  little  whimsical,  individual  twist,  and  have  his 
audience  laughing  and  crying  at  the  same  time. 

The  most  popular  definition  of  humor  is  that 
which  links  it  with  a  sense  of  incongruity.  A 
sense  of  incongruity,  in  turn,  must  rest  upon  a 
sense  of  values,  a  sane,  well-balanced  apprecia- 
tion of  the  fitness  of  things  —  the  truest  and 
rarest  sort  of  wisdom. 

If  this  seems  too  broad  a  statement,  think  how 
many  wise  thoughts  have  been  expressed  with  a 
touch  of  humor,  and  how  many  humorists  have 
been  rated  as  prophets  in  their  wisdom.  Dickens, 
Lincoln,  and  Mark  Twain  —  to  take  three  very 
different  types  —  were  all  consistent  humorists; 


HUMOR  77 

and  all  three  were  philosophers,  preachers,  and 
practical  reformers.  Dickens  wrote  of  the  follies 
and  the  crimes  of  his  day  with  a  humor  that 
ranged  from  the  most  genial  to  the  most  bitter, 
and  he  struck  those  follies  and  crimes  a  telling 
blow.  Lincoln  told  diabolically  funny  stories  to 
illustrate  his  most  determined  opinions;  he  was 
the  greatest  master  of  parable  since  Christ,  and 
his  parables  were  nearly  always  amusing.  And 
Mark  Twain,  kindly  creator  of  Tom  Sawyer  and 
Huck  Finn,  has  been  called  the  most  relentless 
and  dangerous  enemy  of  popular  sham  in  recent 
generations. 

Nobody  expects  the  college  student  of  public 
speaking  to  display  the  mature,  well-balanced 
humor  of  a  Dickens  or  a  Mark  Twain.  But  there 
is  no  reason  why  he  shouldn't  at  least  be  his 
natural  self. 

Watch  a  group  of  students  conversing  in  club 
or  fraternity  rooms,  or  in  the  library,  or  on  the 
athletic  field,  or  in  the  classroom  before  the  lec- 
ture, and  you  will  see  plenty  of  smiles  and  hear 
occasional  bursts  of  laughter  —  even  though  you 
know  them  to  be  discussing  matters  that  they 
take  quite  seriously.  But  watch  any  one  of  the 
same  group  doing  his  turn  in  the  public  speak- 


78    HANDBOOK   OF    PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

ing  class,  or  taking  part  in  a  debate,  and 
see  the  difference!  I  have  seen  men  who  joked 
with  Death  in  1918  frown  and  scowl  painfully 
over  something  no  more  serious  than  the  tariff, 
or  the  evils  of  co-education.  They  have  a  sense 
of  humor,  unquestionably,  —  a  sense  of  humor 
that  would  not  yield  to  the  horrors  of  war; 
but  it  yields  most  ingloriously  to  a  little  self- 
consciousness. 

Occasionally,  to  be  sure,  a  daring  student  does 
come  along  and  upset  tradition  by  introducing  a 
little  humor  into  his  speeches  —  not  so  much  be- 
cause of  an  inner  urge  as  because  he  has  been  told 
that  it  is  a  good  thing  and  is  willing  to  try  any- 
thing once.  Generally  he  pursues  the  wrong 
course:  he  introduces  the  humor  in  order  to  be 
humorous,  not  in  order  to  be  clear,  or  natural, 
or  illuminating.  The  result  is  that  his  humorous 
effort  appears  to  be  dragged  in  by  the  heels.  The 
jokes  may  be  funny,  but  they  are  irrelevant;  they 
exist  as  jokes,  for  their  own  sake,  but  they  inter- 
rupt the  flow  of  thought,  and  hinder  more  than 
they  help.  Moreover,  the  jokes  themselves,  in- 
troduced in  this  way  for  mere  effect,  are  apt  to 
seem  strained,  because  the  speaker,  sensing  their 
artificiality,  becomes  self-conscious  about  them 


HUMOR  79 

and  tells  them  badly,  struggling  hard  to  be  funny 
and  generally  overdoing  it  to  the  point  of  being 
painful. 
—  The  kind  of  humor  that  is  really  worth  while 
is  the  kind  that  grows  naturally  out  of  the 
thought  —  is  a  part  of  the  thought,  not  a  piece 
of  foreign  matter.  As  I  have  already  said,  it  is 
not  matter  at  all,  but  manner;  it  is  the  speaker's 
attitude  towards  the  matter;  his  angle  of  vision; 
his  appreciation  of  the  incongruities  he  observes. 
He  may  introduce  a  humorous  anecdote  to  illus- 
trate a  point,  but  unless  he  has  first  felt  the 
potential  humor  in  the  point  his  illustration  is 
in  great  danger  of  seeming  far-fetched.  The  most 
genuine  and  most  effective  humor  in  public 
speaking  is  that  which  manifests  itself  not  so 
much  in  humorous  stories  and  examples  as  in 
spontaneous  twists  of  phraseology  and  flashes  of 
imagination,  and  in  a  lively  sense  of  connotation. 
The  true  humorist  does  not  always  have  to  drag 
in  humorous  anecdotes  to  illustrate  his  points: 
he  is  able  to  see  that  his  points  (or  some  of  them) 
are  humorous  —  that  there  are  elements  of  in- 
congruity in  them  that  can  be  brought  out.  When 
he  does  use  illustrations  he  is  often  able  to  do 
so  by  means  of  quick  similes  and  metaphors  in- 


80    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

stead  of  roundabout  stories;  he  uses  the  word 
"  hke  "  for  a  connective  instead  of  a  long  palaver 
to  the  effect  that  "  This  reminds  me  of  a  story  I 
once  heard  about  a  man  who  .  .  ."  and  so  on. 
He  does  not  hesitate  to  cite  real  particular  in- 
stances in  order  to  illustrate  a  general  truth,  but 
he  is  very  sparing  indeed  of  far-fetched  analogies 
and  elaborate  parallels  intended  to  be  merely 
funny. 

Is  it  possible  to  learn  to  be  humorous?  Yes 
and  no.  It  is  not  possible  for  a  person  born  ob- 
tuse, with  no  sense  of  values  or  relationships  in 
life;  nor  is  it  possible  for  one  who  is  congenitally 
ill-natured  and  intolerant.  But  for  a  normal 
human  being,  which  means  a  human  being  with 
some  sense  of  humor  in  him,  it  is  quite  possible. 
It  is  a  question  of  bringing  out  what  is  there. 
Often  self-consciousness  is  the  c^hief  obstacle; 
sometimes  there  is  failure  to  observe  and  under- 
stand other  people.  Experience,  study,  and 
analysis  will  do  much  to  remove  both  of  these 
difficulties. 

There  are  certain  well-known  elements  of 
humorous  appeal  which  are  universal  enough  to 
justify  serious  study.  Among  them  may  be 
mentioned: 


HUMOR  81 

1.  The  trivial,  but  spectacular,  mishap.  People  of 
any  nation  or  degree  of  civilization  will  laugii  when 
a  fat  man  slips  on  the  ice.  But  their  reactions  after- 
wards will  vary;  and  nothing  will  offend  people  of 
good  taste  more  quickly  than  an  over-indulgence  in 
this  sort  of  humor.  Their  disapproval  is  not  merely 
objective:  it  is  temperamental;  they  are  ashamed  of 
themselves  for  being  caught  laughing  at  such  horse- 
play. But  the  fact  that  they  do  laugh  indicates  the 
universality  of  the  appeal ;  and  it  is  perfectly  possible 
to  utilize  this  element  with  sufficient  restraint  and 
originality  to  avoid  offense. 

2.  The  downfall  of  false  dignity,  as  when  a  snob 
in  a  tall  silk  hat  runs  afoul  of  a  snowball  fight. 
These  two  elements  are  often  associated,  and  some  of 
the  funniest  scenes  on  the  stage  and  screen  as  well  as 
some  of  the  funniest  stories  are  dependent  upon  them. 
Both  are  subject  to  the  same  limitations,  and  pro- 
voke the  same  reaction  of  disgust  when  carried  to  the 
point  of  vulgarity  or  when  repeated  too  often.  The 
throwing  of  custard  pies  is  no  longer  amusing  to 
persons  of  ordinary  maturity  and  decency,  although 
it  may  still  be  used  to  entertain  the  children  and  the 
feeble-minded. 

3.  Exaggeration,  or  hyperbole.  Not  all  exaggera- 
tion is  humorous:  often  it  is  merely  prevarications. 
But  there  is  a  way  of  exaggerating  things  with  the 
tongue  in  the  cheek  which  puts  no  false  values  on 
them,  but  rather  serves  to  emphasize  their  real  value 
by  contrast.  There  is  a  fictional  element  in  such 
exaggeration  which  is  a  strong  stimulant  to  the 
imagination.  Much  of  the  humor  of  Mark  Twain 
is  based  upon  exaggeration;  he  will  so  over-state  a 


82    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

truth  as  to  make  it  outrageously  absurd,  yet  some- 
how the  truth  is  not  lost.  One  laughs  at  his  grotesque 
statement  that  he  has  seen  at  least  a  barrel  of  nails 
"from  the  true  Cross"  in  the  churches  of  Europe; 
but  one  does  not  miss  the  vital  fact  that  somewhere 
somebody  is  shamming. 

4.  Paradox.  The  paradox  has  been  defined  by 
G.  K.  Chesterton,  one  of  its  greatest  masters,  as  "  the 
truth  stood  on  its  head  to  attract  attention."  It  is 
a  statement  of  thought  by  seemingly  irreconcilable 
opposites,  usually  followed  by  explanation.  Not  all 
paradoxes  are  humorous,  but  the  humorous  paradox 
is  one  of  the  most  effective. 

5.  Irony,  or  sarcasm,  which  is  closely  allied  to  the 
paradox  in  that  it  involves  opposite  statements ;  irony, 
however,  implies  an  element  of  criticism  which  is 
not  necessarily  found  in  the  paradox,  and  the  oppo- 
sition of  statement  is  real  rather  than  merely  ap- 
parent. Paradox  is  a  matter  of  form  and  irony  a 
matter  of  intention.  It  is  really  paradoxical  to  say 
that  "prohibition  does  not  prohibit";  it  is  perhaps 
ironical  to  say  that  it  does. 

6.  Parody;  the  presentation  of  absurd  matter  in 
serious  form,  particularly  in  imitation  of  the  form 
of  a  serious  thing  already  familiar,  for  purposes  of 
burlesque.  Almost  every  well-known  poem  has  been 
parodied  many  times.  Poe's  "Annabel  Lee  "  for  ex- 
ample has  been  imitated  with  marvelous  fidelity  to 
rhyme  and  meter  in  a  set  of  nonsense  verses  entitled 
"  The  Cannibal  Flea." 

7.  Travesty;  the  opposite  of  parody,  consisting  of 
serious  matter  presented  in  comic  or  degraded  form. 
Parody   and  travesty    are   seldom   carefully   distin- 


HUMOR  83 

guished,  and  the  terms  are  generally  used  loosely  and 
interchangeably. 

8.  Satire;  the  comic  treatment  of  a  folly  or  abuse 
for  purposes  of  ridicule;  it  may  employ  the  methods 
of  parody  or  travesty,  but  with  an  ironical  and  criti- 
cal intention,  an  element  of  attack,  not  found  in  pure 
parody.  It  may  be  gentle  or  it  may  be  severe,  but 
the  moment  it  becomes  ill-natured  and  intolerant  it 
ceases  to  be  humorous.  Generally,  also,  it  ceases  to 
be  very  useful  to  the  public  speaker. 

9.  Grotesquely;  the  distortion  of  natural  objects  in 
fanciful  or  bizarre  ways  for  humorous  effect.  Like 
satire  it  ceases  to  be  humorous  when  it  becomes  ill- 
natured,  and  the  only  reaction  it  provokes  is  disgust. 
It  is  seen  at  its  worst  in  the  cartoons  of  Germany, 
Sweden,  and  Spain;  compare  them  with  those  of 
Punch  or  Life,  or  with  the  good-humored  comics  of 
Fontaine  Fox,  and  you  cannot  miss  the  difference. 
Good-natured  grotesquery  has  a  universal  appeal, 
witness  the  popularity  of  the  Sunday  newspaper 
comics,  which  often  have  nothing  else  to  recommend 
them. 

10.  Irreverence.  American  humor,  particularly,  is 
irreverent  in  spirit,  not  necessarily  to  the  point  of 
being  blasphemous  or  offensive,  but  sufficiently  to 
produce  slight  shocks  and  thrills;  it  is  especially 
irreverent  of  custom,  tradition,  and  secular  authority. 
America  began  with  rebellion  against  authority,  and 
has  been  more  or  less  steadily  engaged  in  it  ever 
since ;  and  the  American  people  take  a  more  exquisite 
delight  in  outraging  authority  than  any  other  people 
—  bar  the  Irish,  to  whom  authority  means  England. 
And  when  a  humorist  can  couple  daring  irreverence 


84    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

with  a  genuine  attack  on  sham,  as  Mark  Twain  did, 
he  is  likely  to  be  popular  in  America,  at  least. 

11.  Tolerance.  True  humor  is  tolerant,  although 
a  spirit  of  tolerance  is  not  inconsistent  with  vigorous 
attack.  One  may  disapprove  tolerantly;  he  may  be 
merciless  in  his  ridicule  of  human  behavior,  yet  toler- 
ant of  the  human  being  whose  behavior  he  attacks. 
Scathing  wit  does  not  appeal;  it  may  make  an  audi- 
ence laugh,  but  it  hardens  them.  It  does  not  win 
sympathy  for  the  speaker  or  his  views;  it  may  even 
win  sympathy  for  his  victim.  The  humor  that  laughs 
with,  rather  than  at  somebody  is  the  kind  that  really 
counts. 

12.  Individuality.  The  very  word  humor  once 
meant  "  individual  bent,  or  trait  of  character."  It 
is  the  little  differences  between  individuals  and  in- 
dividual points  of  view  that  make  the  incongruities 
of  life  and  thought.  He  who  would  be  truly  humorous 
must  be  humorous  in  his  own  way.  Not  by  imitating 
others,  but  by  developing  himself,  will  he  learn  the 
secret  of  genuine  humor. 

Such  are  the  commonest  elements  of  humorous 
appeal.  The  list  is  not  complete,  and,  I  confess, 
not  very  homogeneous,  but  it  may  be  useful  in 
a  purely  suggestive  way. 

A  little  study  of  these  elements  will  show  the 
speaker  that  there  is  a  common  denominator, — 
namely,  incongruity.  As  I  have  already  said,  a 
real  sense  of  incongruity  rests  upon  a  sense  of 


HUMOR  85 

values.  The  speaker's  task,  therefore,  is  not 
merely  to  provide  himself  with  a  stock  of  jokes 
to  draw  upon.  It  is  rather  to  educate  himself  to 
a  keen  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  and  a  lively 
appreciation  of  the  incongruities  out  of  which 
jokes  are  made.  By  this  means  he  will  learn  to 
see  the  potential  humor  in  his  own  thought  proc- 
esses, and  to  enliven  them  in  a  way  that  is  really 
his  own. 

The  speaker  who  has  accomplished  this  has 
better  equipped  himself  not  only  to  deliver 
prepared  speeches,  but  also  to  meet  success- 
fully the  conditions  of  extemporaneous  speaking; 
for  a  ready  flow  of  genuine  humor  is  the  surest 
and  best  means  of  meeting  many  of  the  emergen- 
cies that  are  constantly  arising  — interruptions, 
accidents,  heckling,  and  so  on  —  and  almost  the 
only  means  of  meeting  determined  hostility.  One 
of  the  most  famous  speeches  of  all  time  —  the 
Liverpool  Speech  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher^  — 
illustrates  admirably  the  extent  to  which  this 
is  true.  In  his  attempt  to  deliver  that  speech 
Beecher  faced  an  audience  that  had  come  pur- 
posely to  drive  him  from  the  platform.  With  un- 
conquerable good  nature  and  unfailing  sense  of 

1  See  "  The  World's  Great  Orations,"  Vol.  X. 


86    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

humor  he  fenced  and  parried  with  his  audience 
for  an  hour,  meeting  every  emergency  as  it  arose 
and  compelling  them  to  laugh  with  him,  until  at 
last  he  won  himself  a  hearing. 

A  speaker  who  can  do  that  will  never  be  dis- 
concerted when  the  lights  unexpectedly  go  out,  or 
a  drunken  man  grows  troublesome,  or  the  audi- 
ence develops  an  unexpected  reaction.  But  he 
cannot  laugh  down  the  tribulations  of  the  speaker 
unless  he  is  accustomed  to  laughing  down  the 
tribulations  of  the  man. 


Chapter   XII 
VOCABULARY 

IT  IS  often  said  that  the  "  tools  "  of  speech 
are  words,  tones,  and  actions;  and  the  stu- 
dent may  be  wondering  why  I  have  postponed 
discussing  these  things  so  long.  The  reason  is 
that  while  extremely  important  they  are  not  fun- 
damental. Good  tools  are  always  an  asset;  but 
they  do  not  make  a  speaker  any  more  than  they 
make  a  carpenter  or  a  dentist.  One  may  have  a 
beautiful  voice,  graceful  gestures,  and  a  superb 
command  of  the  language,  and  yet  be  a  hollow, 
artificial,  insincere,  and  ineffective  speaker;  on 
the  other  hand  one  may  be  a  surprisingly  effec- 
tive speaker  in  spite  of  a  poor  voice  or  awkward 
gestures.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  for  example,  was 
a  tremendously  powerful  speaker,  though  his  ges- 
tures were  monotonous  and  his  voice  shrill.  He 
had  something  to  say  and  a  sincere,  vigorous  way 
of  saying  it,  and  such  a  man  will  be  listened  to 
whether  his  tools  of  speech  are  in  perfect  con- 
dition or  not. 

87 


88    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

But  this  is  no  argument  in  favor  of  poor  tools. 
He  who  would  do  his  own  best  must  strive  persist- 
ently to  perfect  his  voice,  gestures,  and  com- 
mand of  language,  to  the  end  that  they  may  be- 
come, not  his  masters,  but  his  good  and  faithful 
servants.  In  this  and  the  next  two  chapters  are 
set  down  a  few  facts  concerning  these  tools  which 
may  at  least  help  to  start  the  student  on  the  right 
sort  of  self- training. 

The  command  of  language  that  a  speaker  needs 
is  so  largely  a  matter  of  his  general  education 
and  of  his  training  in  composition  and  literature 
that  it  need  not  be  fully  covered  here.  But  there 
are  certain  special  problems  of  language  which 
confront  the  speaker  as  distinguished  from  ihe 
writer,  and  these  are  properly  our  province. 
Some  of  them  have  already  been  discussed  in  con- 
nection with  Concreteness,  Reinforcement,  and 
Drift;  others  will  be  considered  later  in  connec- 
tion with  Methods  of  Preparation.  One  problem, 
however,  merits  separate  consideration  —  the 
problem  of  vocabulary. 

Vocabulary,  in  the  larger  sense,  includes  phrase- 
ology as  well  as  diction;  it  is  the  sum  total  of 
language  material. 

When  a  student  talks  fluently  but  incorrectly, 


VOCABULARY  89 

using  ungrammatical  constructions  and  barbar- 
isms of  speech,  it  is  evident  that  the  fault  lies  with 
his  general  education.  His  only  remedy  is  more 
schooling,  more  reading,  more  association  with 
educated  people.  He  needs  vocabulary  building 
by  all  means,  but  from  the  inside  out  —  ideas  as 
well  as  words.  His  difficulty  is  not  specifically  a 
matter  of  public  speaking.  If  he  is  sensible 
enough  to  realize  his  deficiency  at  all  he  is  not 
generally  puzzled  as  to  its  nature. 

But  often  a  student  comes  to  me  whose  diffi- 
culty is  quite  different  from  this.  His  general 
education  and  environment  have  been  good,  he 
perhaps  writes  very  well,  and  he  seldom  offends 
by  vulgarities  of  speech;  yet  he  is  troubled  on 
the  platform  by  a  failure  of  words.  He  stumbles, 
hesitates,  and  in  desperation  uses  words  and 
phrases  that  are  painfully  clumsy  and  inadequate. 
He  knows  they  are  inadequate,  and  his  listeners 
know  that  he  knows;  yet  he  seems  perfectly  help- 
less. His  vocabulary  seems  to  be  unequal  to  the 
expression  of  his  thoughts. 

He  comes  up  to  me  afterwards,  disgusted  with 
himself.  "  I  can't  understand  it,"  he  says ;  "  I 
know  what  I  want  to  say,  but  when  I  get  up  there 
the  words  won't  come.     I  could  sit  down  and 


90    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

write  it  easily  enough,  and  never  be  troubled  for 
words,  but  on  the  platform  I  get  all  fussed  and 
rattled,  and  can't  think  of  the  right  words  to  save 
me.    What's  the  matter  with  me,  anyway?  " 

Sometimes  the  matter  is  partly  nervousness  or 
self-consciousness  occasioned  by  some  miscon- 
ception of  the  speaker's  task^  and  always  this  may 
be  a  contributing  cause.  But  the  matter  is  chiefly 
a  faulty  speaking  vocabulary. 

The  student  may  think  himself  fairly  well 
equipped  with  words  because  he  can  write.  What 
he  fails  to  understand  is  that  the  writing  vocabu- 
lary is  one  thing  and  the  speaking  vocabulary 
another. 

There  are  really  four  vocabularies  —  a  reading 
vocabulary,  a  writing  vocabulary,  a  hearing 
vocabulary,  and  a  speaking  vocabulary  —  almost 
as  distinct  as  four  different  languages.  One  may 
know  four  different  languages,  but  know  some  of 
them  better  than  others ;  and  one  may  be  able  to 
translate  better  from,  say,  French  into  English, 
than  from  English  into  French. 

Of   the   four   vocabularies  —  reading,   writing, 
hearing,    speaking  —  the    first    two    are    bound 
up  with  the  visual  sense,  the  last  two  with  the^ 
auditory.    The  reading  and  hearing  vocabularies 


VOCABULARY  91 

are  receptive,  or  sensory;  the  writing  and  speak- 
ing are  active,  or  motor.  The  reading  and  hear- 
ing involve  actual  sensations  and  the  memory; 
the  writing  and  speaking  involve  kinesthetic  sen- 
sations and  the  imagination. 

The  four  do  not  develop  simultaneously,  and 
are  not  constant  in  their  relative  proportions. 
The  hearing  vocabulary  develops  first;  the  child 
learns  to  understand  words  before  it  learns  to 
speak  them.  The  speaking  vocabulary  is  a  close 
second,  and  develops  in  intimate  relationship 
with  the  hearing  vocabulary  through  the  years 
of  liveliest  curiosity  and  keenest  imitative  sense 
—  the  years  when  a  child  repeats  aloud  each  new 
word  that  it  hears.  But  it  never  quite  catches  up 
to  the  hearing  vocabulary. 

The  reading  and  writing  vocabularies  simply 
do  not  exist  at  first,  even  after  the  other  two  are 
well  developed.  They  begin  with  schooling.  At 
first  they  develop  together,  and  indeed  are  almost 
identical;  but  from  the  time  when  the  child  first 
begins  to  read  for  himself  the  reading  vocabulary 
begins  to  outstrip  the  writing,  and  the  gap  gradu- 
ally widens.  At  the  same  time  these  two  vo- 
cabularies rapidly  begin  to  overtake  the  hearing 
and  speaking  vocabularies,  and  by  the  time  the 


92    HANDBOOK    OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

child  is  half-way  through  the  grammar  school 
they  have  far  outstripped  them.  In  persons  of 
considerable  education  the  reading  vocabulary 
may  be  two  or  three  times  as  large  as  the  hearing 
vocabulary,  and  the  writing  may  be  ten  times 
as  large  as  the  speaking. 

It  is  the  last  fact  that  may  account  for  our 
friend's  predicament.  He  may  have  a  large 
writing  vocabulary  (as  well  as  a  large  reading 
one),  but  his  speaking  vocabulary  may  be  small. 
In  ordinary  conversation  he  does  not  notice  it  be- 
cause one  uses  a  very  small  vocabulary  anyhow  in 
conversation;  but  when  he  attempts  to  speak  on 
more  formal  occasions,  making  larger  demands 
upon  his  supply  of  words,  the  words  simply  won't 
come.  He  knows  them,  in  the  sense  that  he  could 
use  them  easily  enough  in  writing,  but  they  do 
not  come  to  his  tongue  and  lips  because  he  is  not 
accustomed  to  speaking  them  out  loud;  he  has 
no  kinesthetic  realization  of  those  words,  that  is, 
he  does  not  know  how  it  feels  to  utter  them. 

The  extent  to  which  this  discrepancy  prevails 
is  well  illustrated  when  students  of  composition 
are  asked  to  read  their  own  themes  aloud.  Time 
and  again  they  come  upon  words  that  they  have 
used  themselves,  and  used  correctly,  but  which 


VOCABULARY  93 

they  are  utterly  unable  to  pronounce.  A  cynic 
might  blame  this  difficulty  on  the  popular  habit 
of  stealing  themes  instead  of  writing  them;  but 
he  would  be  less  than  half  right.  I  have  re- 
peatedly found  students  unable  to  pronounce 
words  that  they  used  freely  and  habitually  in 
their  daily  writings;  and  I  have  seen  them  very 
much  astonished  to  discover  their  inability.  It 
had  never  occurred  to  them  to  be  curious  about 
the  sounds  of  the  words;  their  association  was 
entirely  with  the  visual  sense,  not  the  auditory. 
The  two  are  in  different  worlds. 

Given  a  deficiency  in  any  one  of  the  four  vo- 
cabularies, there  are  three  ways  of  going  about 
removing  it : 

1.  By  increasing  all  the  vocabularies. 

2.  By  widening  the  channels  of  association  between 
them. 

3.  By  adding  directly  to  the  deficient  one. 

The  four  vocabularies  might  be  compared  to 
four  tanks  containing  unequal  quantities  of  heavy 
oil,  and  having  very  narrow  connecting  passages, 
allowing  only  a  slight  leakage  from  the  higher 
levels  to  the  lower.  If  no  oil  were  added,  the 
four  bodies  would  eventually  find  a  common 
level;  but  if  oil  were  added  often  and  in  proper- 


94    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

tionate  quantities  the  leakage  would  not  be  suffi- 
cient to  overcome  the  inequalities,  and  some  tanks 
would  retain  a  higher  level  than  others. 

Obviously,  a  low  level  in  any  one  tank  could  be 
raised  by  increasing  the  quantity  of  oil  in  the 
others,  and  consequently  the  pressure  at  which 
the  leakage  took  place;  or  by  widening  the  con- 
necting passages;  or  by  pouring  oil  directly  into 
the  tank  concerned. 

In  the  normally  educated  person  of  college  age 
or  thereabouts  the  level  is  highest  in  the  reading 
vocabulary,  and  lowest  in  the  speaking.  But  the 
passage  between  these  two  is  the  narrowest,  be- 
cause the  association  is  the  least  direct;  one  is 
sensory  and  visual,  the  other  motor  and  auditory. 
The  widest  passages  are-  those  between  the  two 
visual  vocabularies  and  between  the  two  auditory. 

Keeping  this  analogy  in  mind  the  student 
should  endeavor  to  analyze  his  own  difficulties, 
and  to  remedy  them  in  accordance  with  the  sug- 
gestions given.  Any  exercise  that  will  put  words 
directly  into  the  deficient  vocabulary,  or  that  will 
increase  the  association  between  that  vocabulary 
and  the  others,  or  that  will  substantially  increase 
the  pressure  in  the  others,  will  be  beneficial. 

For  the  improvement  of  a  deficient  speaking 


VOCABULARY  95 

vocabulary  the  best  exercise  I  know  is  thoughtful, 
wide-awake  reading  aloud,  because: 

1.  It  fills  up  the  reading  vocabulary  faster  even 
than  silent  reading,  for  one  must  read  all  the  words 
instead  of  just  "skimming";  and  this  increases  the 
pressure  in  the  largest  tank. 

2.  It  increases  the  association  between  the  reading 
and  speaking  vocabularies,  thus  widening  the  most 
important  channel  of  leakage. 

3.  It  puts  words  directly  into  the  speaking  vocabu- 
lary, since  the  reader  actually  speaks  each  new  word 
on  first  acquaintance,  instead  of  merely  hearing  it 
or  looking  at  it.  By  reading  from  many  different 
authors  with  different  vocabularies  he  can  make  this 
process  very  rapid. 

The  second  best  exercise,  not  always  so  readily 
available,  but  never  to  be  neglected  when  the 
opportunity  affords  itself,  is  conversation  with 
well-educated  people,  because: 

1.  It  re-stimulates  the  imitative  process  of  child- 
hood; one  hears  others  using  good  words  and  strives 
to  do  likewise. 

2.  It  fills  up  the  hearing  vocabulary,  from  which 
words  leak  most  easily  into  the  speaking  vocabulary. 

The  third  best  exercise  is  the  habit  of  reading 
aloud  whatever  one  writes,  because: 

1.  It  increases  the  association  between  the  writing 
and  speaking  vocabularies,  utilizing  the  two  motor 
impulses  in  common. 


96    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

2.  It  increases  the  association  between  the  read- 
ing and  speaking  vocabularies,  in  some  measure  at 
least. 

3.  It  strengthens  the  connection  between  the 
writer's  own  thought  processes  and  the  kinesthetics  of 
speech. 

Better  than  any  one  of  these  exercises  is  the 
judicious  use  of  all  three,  under  which  a  poor 
speaking  vocabulary  can  hardly  fail  to  improve. 
But  in  the  performance  of  any  or  all  of  them  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  no  good  is  accom- 
plished by  gazing  at  an  unfamiliar  word,  wonder- 
ing what  it  means  and  how  to  pronounce  it,  and 
then  passing  it  up.  The  student  will  never  get 
anywhere  unless  he  is  willing  to  look  in  the  dic- 
tionary now  and  then  and  learn  something  for 
himself.  A  student  who  hasn't  ambition  enough 
to  provide  himself  with  a  good  dictionary  and  use 
it  is  a  "  weak  sister,"  and  the  sooner  somebody 
tells  him  so  the  better. 


Chapter   XIII 
VOICE 

LUCKY  is  the  speaker  who  possesses  a  good 
voice,  whether  he  got  it  by  accident  of 
birth,  or  by  virtue  of  careful  training  in  child- 
hood. Not  that  the  good  voice  will  in  any  sense 
make  him  a  good  speaker  —  I  cannot  repeat  too 
often  that  it  will  do  nothing  of  the  sort  —  but 
that  it  will  save  him  a  great  deal  of  bother  and 
worry  that  would  otherwise  steal  time  from  more 
important  things. 

For  the  singer,  of  course,  voice  is  paramount. 
He  must  begin  early  and  build  constructively  for 
many  years,  not  merely  to  escape  faults,  but  to 
realize  positive  beauties  of  voice  for  the  interpre- 
tation of  music.  A  good  speaking  voice,  however, 
is  not  necessarily  beautiful  in  this  sense.  It 
should  be  sufficiently  so,  of  course,  to  fall 
pleasantly  rather  than  unpleasantly  on  the  ear. 
It  should  be  free  of  such  abuses  as  nasality,  harsh- 
ness, and  extremes  of  pitch,  because  these  things 
distract  and  annoy  the  audience,  but  it  need  not 

97 


98    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

be  surpassingly  melodious.  It  should  be  flexible 
and  responsive  enough  to  convey  the  feelings  of 
the  speaker,  but  it  need  not  be  capable  of  operatic 
pyrotechnics.  The  chief  requirements  are  that 
it  shall  be  loud  enough  and  clear  enough  to  reach 
a  large  audience  easily,  that  it  shall  be  free  of 
aU  distracting  qualities  whether  good  or  bad  in 
themselves,  that  it  shall  be  accompanied  by  dis- 
tinct articulation,  and  that  it  shall  be  so  naturally 
produced  as  to  withstand  fatigue. 

Nature  has  given  each  normal  human  being 
the  makings  of  a  reasonably  good  voice,  and  prac- 
tically every  failure  to  realize  such  a  voice  is 
traceable  to  abuse  of  some  kind.  If  human  beings 
lived  natural  animal  lives  there  would  be  little 
'need  for  voice  training,  and  none  for  voice  cor- 
rection, except  as  the  result  of  physical  accident. 
But  we  do  not  lead  natural  lives.  We  live  indoors 
instead  of  out,  breathing  dust,  gas,  and  carbon 
dioxide  instead  of  pure  air;  we  wear  foolish 
clothes  and  abuse  our  stomachs,  subjecting  our- 
selves to  catarrh,  laryngitis,  and  bronchitis;  we 
spoil  our  natural  habits  of  breathing  by  squeezing 
ourselves  with  belts,  vests  or  corsets,  and  by  sit- 
ting long  hours  in  cramped  and  unnatural  posi- 
tions; and  we  impose  upon  ourselves  —  and  our 


VOICE  99 

children  —  all  sorts  of  artificial  restraints  and 
constraints  in  the  use  of  the  voice  under  the  guise 
of  social  propriety. 

The  wonder  is  not  that  some  voices  are  poor 
in  quality  or  tire  easily;  the  wonder  is  that 
people  of  college  age  or  older  have  any  voices 
left.  That  they  have  is  simply  due  to  the  marvel- 
ous persistence  of  Nature  in  claiming  and  re- 
claiming her  own.  Give  her  half  a  chance  and  she 
will  set  things  right  even  after  appalling  abuse. 

For  the  public  speaking  student  of  college  age 
voice  training  is  not  a  matter  of  creating  some- 
thing artificial  that  did  not  exist  before.  It  is  a 
matter  of  correcting  such  abuses  as  have  arisen 
and  restoring  the  natural  voice;  and  with  a  few 
fortunate  individuals  it  is  not  even  that. 

Problems  of  voice  include  those  of  breathing, 
vocalization,  and  articulation.  The  latter,  being 
acquired  'through  civilization,  is  perhaps  not  a 
matter  of  voice  in  the  physiological  sense,  but  it 
is  most  conveniently  studied  in  connection  with 
voice. 

Of  breathing  and  vocalization  it  can  be  posi- 
tively said  that  the  correct  method  is  the  natural 
method.  But  what  is  the  natural  method?  The 
only  way  to  find  out  is  to  observe  the  behavior  of 


100    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

the  only  truly  natural  people  in  the  world:  the 
children. 

When  a  child  feels  the  impulse  to  shout,  his 
mouth  and  throat  open  wide,  he  sucks  in  a  full 
breath,  and  he  shouts.  He  puts  his  whole  body 
into  the  effort,  and  for  that  reason  he  seems  to  feel 
no  effort.  There  is  no  special  strain  in  any  one 
place.  His  breathing  may  be  diaphragmatic,  or 
ajbdominal  —  most  teachers  of  voice  insist  that 
correct  breathing  is  abdominal  —  but  he  is  no 
more  conscious  of  his  abdomen  or  his  diaphragm 
(of  which  he  has  never  heard)  than  he  is  of  his 
femurs  when  he  runs.  What  is  more  important, 
he  is  entirely  unconscious  of  his  throat;  no  matter 
how  loud  he  shouts  and  screams  it  never  seems 
to  feel  uncomfortable  to  him,  simply  because  his 
throat  is  quite  relaxed  and  free  from  strain. 

We  marvel  at  the  child's  power  to  keep  up  the 
screaming  and  shouting  all  day  with  no  apparent 
effect  except  physical  fatigue.  When  we  grown- 
ups shout  a  little  we  generally  grow  quite  hoarse; 
and  even  without  shouting,  many  of  us  who  have 
to  talk  every  day  manage  to  maintain  chronic 
cases  of  "  clergymen's  sore  throat."  We  can  be 
reasonably  sure  that  most  of  the  children  will 
eventually  acquire  the  same  difficulties. 


VOICE  '         101 

When  does  the  change  begin?  It  begins  when 
we  first  say  to  the  child  in  defense,  not  of  his 
voice,  but  of  our  own  civilized  nerves:  "  Sh !  Don't 
scream  so!  You  will  ruin  your  voice.  You  must 
learn  to  talk  quietly  and  politely."  The  child 
instantly  becomes  conscious  of  his  voice  —  for 
the  first  time.  Instead  of  producing  it  naturally 
he  now  assumes  a  strained,  artificial  tone,  restrict- 
ing his  breath,  and  constricting  his  throat. 
Through  years  of  such  treatment  he  goes  on  to 
develop  a  voice  that  is  perhaps  soft  and  polite 
in  conversation,  but  that  is  produced  at  the  cost 
of  unnatural  breathing  and  throat  constriction. 
Then  when  he  wants  to  use  his  voice  more  freely 
and  vigorously,  as  in  addressing  a  large  audience, 
he  cannot  do  so;  he  has  forgotten  how,  and  only 
succeeds  in  straining  himself  and  going  hoarse. 

When  a  person  has  got  into  such  a  state  there 
is  only  one  way  to  get  out.  He  must  take  himself 
in  hand  and  correct  the  faulty  habit.  Most 
people  are  terribly  afraid  of  habit;  they  would 
rather  remain  slaves  to  it  than  endure  the  hard- 
ship of  fighting  it,  for  in  the  early  stages  a  fight 
with  habit  undoubtedly  requires  determination 
and  hard  work.  But  with  intelligence  and  perse- 
verence  it  is  really  much  easier  to  change  a  habit 


102    HANDBOOK   ^F   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

than  most  people  suppose,  and  the  farther  you 
go  the  easier  it  gets. 

The  first  step,  naturally,  is  to  find  out  what  is 
wrong.  It  is  surprising  how  many  people  seem 
perfectly  willing  to  omit  that  step,  and  to  go 
floundering  around  wasting  time  and  effort  to 
no  purpose.  Success  in  fighting  habit  rests  upon 
clear  and  careful  analysis  of  the  situation,  fol- 
lowed by  concentration  of  effort.  A  physician 
usually  makes  some  sort  of  an  attempt  to  find 
out  What  is  wrong  with  a  patient  before  he  pre- 
scribes a  remedy;  he  doesn't  start  with  the  as- 
sumption that  the  patient  has  every  disease  there 
is  and  prescribe  the  whole  pharmacopoeia.  But  I 
have  often  known  a  teacher  of  "  expression  "  to 
prescribe  a  whole  chapter  of  vocal  exercises  to  an 
entire  class,  and  hold  daily  drills  with  military 
uniformity  and  precision.  Fortunately,  vocal 
exercises  are  not  as  dangerous  as  drugs,  and  the 
teacher,  unlike  the  physician,  is  able  to  "  get 
away  with  "  this  sort  of  treatment.  Instead  of 
killing  his  patients  he  merely  makes  them  feel 
foolish,  doing  them  very  little  injury,  and  per- 
haps even  a  little  good.  But  he  does  not  ac- 
complish very  much  in  the  direction  of  correcting 
specific  faulty  habits  in  individual  students;  and 


VOICE  103 

the  student  will  not  accomplish  very  much  for 
himself,  with  or  without  a  teacher,  unless  his 
efforts  are  based  upon  a  pretty  accurate  diagnosis 
of  his  particular  needs. 

The  most  serious  vocal  faults  that  I  have  found 
among  students  of  college  age  or  thereabouts  are 
the  following: 

1.  Faults  in  breathing 

a.  Insufficient  lung  capacity,  due  usually  to 
neglect  of  the  habit  of  deep  breathing. 

b.  Breathlessness,  due  to  the  habit  of  speaking 
with  the  lungs  nearly  empty,  and  no  breath 
reserve. 

c.  Inadequate  control  of  breath,  due  usually  to 
some  form  of  constriction  that  has  resulted 
in  a  cramped  habit  of  breathing. 

d.  Fluttering,  or  temporary  loss  of  control,  due 
to  nervousness. 

2.  Faults  in  vocalization    (tone  production) 

a.  Breathiness;  wasteful  use  of  more  breath 
than  is  necessary  to  produce  a  good  tone,  re- 
sulting in  a  thin,  weak  tone  and  in  shortness 
of  breath. 

b.  Guttural  placing;  a  habit  of  producing  the 
tone  too  far  back  in  the  throat;  usually  asso- 
ciated with  failure  to  open  the  mouth  wide 
enough. 

c.  Nasality;  due  sometimes  to  a  habit  of  pass- 
ing the  air  through  the  nose  while  speaking, 
and  sometimes  to  complete  or  partial  obstruc- 


104    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

tion  of  the  nasal  and  post-nasal  cavities,  in- 
terfering with  head  resonance.  The  latter  is 
often  a  matter  of  growth  or  malformation, 
needing  medical  attention  rather  than  vocal 
exercises. 

d.  Harshness;  discord,  due  to  the  presence  of 
disharmonic  rather  than  harmonic  overtones. 
Since  the  voice  has  a  strong  tendency  to 
reflect  the  feelings  this  fault  is  most  often 
found  in  irritable,  or  ill-natured,  or  ill-bred 
people.  However,  it  is  sometimes  the  re- 
sult of  disease,  or  merely  of  habit. 

e.  Faulty  pitch;  too  low,  or  (more  often)  too 
high.  Sometimes  variable  and  uncertain. 
Often  associated  with  harshness,  and  may  be 
due  to  similar  causes,  or  to  an  unmusical  ear. 

f .  Flatness,  or  woodenness ;  due  to  a  lack  of  suffi- 
cient resonance.  Not  so  serious  as  some  other 
faults,  but  limits  the  expressiveness  of  the 
voice,  and  makes  it  harder  to  hold  sympathy 
and  attention. 

g.  Monotony,  when  a  matter  of  vocal  habit, 
especially  monotony  of  pitch.  But  monotony 
is  more  often  a  mental  than  a  vocal  fault.^ 

h.  Hoarseness;  a  symptom  of  chronic  vocal 
abuse;  sometimes  an  obstinate  habit,  espe- 
cially with  those  of  German  or  Yiddish 
origin. 

i.  Tonelessness ;  a  habit  of  speaking  in  con- 
sonants only,  neglecting  the  vowels;  of  speak- 
ing in  noises  rather  than  tones. 

1  See  Chapter  V;    also  page    108,   this   chapter. 


VOICE  105 

Faults  in  articulation 

a.  Slovenly  enunciation;  plain,  all-round  care- 
lessness in  forming  the  sounds  of  speech. 
Very  common. 

b.  "Mushy"  enunciation;  talking  as  if  the 
mouth  were  full  of  mush.  Due  to  physical 
causes  such  as  too  much  or  too  little  saliva; 
or  to  fatigue  or  brain  fag;  or  to  lack  of  flexi- 
bility in  lips  and  tongue  and  jaws,  with  failure 
to  open  the  mouth  wide  enough. 

c.  Slurring;  failure  to  form  clearly  such  sounds 
as  seem  a  little  hard,  especially  combinations 
of  consonants  like  st,  sp,  pr,  pt,  kt,  etc.;  also 
final  ng  as  in  all  present  participles. 

d.  Habitual  failure  to  finish  sounds,  especially 
final  consonants  like  t,  p,  or  k.  Perhaps 
merely  a  form  of  slurring,  but  a  specific 
national  habit  with  Americans. 

e.  Habitual  contraction  of  words  and  elision  of 
syllables,  as  in  "  comp'ny  "  or  "  tell  'em." 

f.  Habitual  insertion  of  extra  vowels,  as  in 
"  athaletics."  When  this  and  other  faults  of 
pronunciation  are  due  to  ignorance  rather 
than  habit  they  are  matters  of  vocabulary 
rather  than  of  voice. 

g.  Tongue-tie,  lisping,  or  other  speech  impedi- 
ments due  to  minor  malformation.  In  all 
but  extreme  cases,  however,  they  are  boimd 
up  with  habit,  and  will  yield  to  exercises. 

h.  Stammering,  stuttering,  or  other  serious 
speech  defects.  These  are  usually  due  to 
mental,  though  often  subconscious,  causes, 
and  are  bound  up  with  the  emotional  biog- 


106    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

raphies  of  the  victims.  They  seldom  yield  to 
simple  exercises,  but  require  expert  treatment 
by  trained  speech-correctionists. 

i.  Habitual  difficulty  in  enunciating  certain 
sounds,  due  to  foreign  birth  or  environment. 
Common,  and  obstinate. 

j.  Mispronunciation  of  many  kinds  due  to 
environment  and  habit. 

k.  Drawling;  prolonging  the  vowels  and  mouth- 
ing the  syllables.  Very  common  with 
Southerners. 

This  is  a  very  rough  list,  far  from  complete, 
and  possibly  not  very  scientific;  but  it  does 
include  all  of  the  vocal  faults  that  have  come  to 
my  attention  in  class  and  that  are  serious  enough 
to  interfere  with  the  effectiveness  of  the  speaker. 
I  set  them  down  here  by  way  of  warning,  and  by 
way  of  help  to  the  reader  who  must  shift  for  him- 
self. But  the  diagnosis  of  faults  in  the  individual 
and  the  prescription  of  corrective  exercises  is 
properly  the  business  of  the  teacher;  or  in  the 
case  of  speech  defects,  the  psychiatrist  or  the 
surgeon.  A  list  of  good  corrective  exercises  will 
be  found  in  Appendix  A  of  this  book,  and  from  it 
the  teacher  may  prescribe,  or  the  student  select, 
suitable  treatment  for  the  correction  of  any  com- 
mon fault  that  is  a  matter  of  habit.     For  the 


VOICE  107 

treatment  of  the  more  obstinate  faults,  particu- 
larly actual  speech  defects,  the  student  will  need 
expert  help,  and  the  teacher  who  is  not  himself 
a  trained  speech-correctionist  should  refer  the 
student  to  some  one  who  is. 

With  or  without  the  assistance  of  a  teacher, 
the  student  who  would  correct  his  vocal  faults 
should  remember  one  or  two  safe  and  sane 
principles: 

1.  Good  voice  production  is  natural,  easy,  painless. 
The  presence  of  strain  or  pain  is  a  sure  sign  of  incor- 
rect method. 

2.  In  good  voice  production  there  may  be  violent 
muscular  action  in  the  region  of  the  diaphragm,  but 
the  throat  is  open  and  relaxed,  and  the  speaker  is 
unconscious  of  its  existence. 

3.  Nobody  can  breathe  badly  twenty-three  hours  a 
day  and  then  breathe  correctly  at  will  for  purposes 
of  pubhc  speaking.    Good  breathing  must  be  habitual. 

4.  All  problems  of  forming  or  correcting  habit  turn 
upon  the  fact  that  habit  is  cumulative;  that  every 
time  you  win  you  strengthen  the  good  habit,  and 
every  time  you  lose  you  strengthen  the  bad  one. 

5.  A  little  regular  practice  at  frequent  intervals 
is  better  than  sporadic  orgies  of  practice. 

Besides  the  common  faults  in  voice  production 
so  far  mentioned,  there  are  some  errors  to  be 
guarded  against  in  the  use  of  the  voice.    Some 


108    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

speakers  with  perfectly  adequate  voices  do  not 
speak  loud  enough,  simply  as  a  matter  of  habit, 
or  of  poor  judgment.  Others  speak  too  loud.  A 
few  speakers  play  with  their  voices;  they  seem 
to  enjoy  the  sound  of  their  own  inflections,  and 
indulge  in  all  sorts  of  vocal  gymnastics  whether 
called  for  by  the  thought  or  not.  But  by  far  the 
commonest  fault  in  the  use  of  the  voice  is 
monotony. 

Monotony  is  simple  lack  of  variety.  It  is  pos- 
sible to  vary  the  voice  in  pitch,  in  force,  or  in 
tempo,  and  it  is  possible  to  be  monotonous  in  any 
one  of  these  elements,  or  in  all  three.  Monotony 
of  pitch  is  the  most  distressing  form  of  monotony, 
but  it  is  also  the  easiest  to  recognize  and  guard 
against;  it  is  usually  a  matter  of  habit.  Monotony 
of  force  is  destructive  to  meaning  and  to  climax, 
and  generally  arises  from  a  lack  of  emphasis  in 
the  speaker's  mind.  Monotony  of  tempo,  or 
pace,  is  the  most  insidious  form  of  monotony,  and 
the  hardest  to  deal  with;  it  is  one  of  the  last 
faults  to  yield  to  training,  and  as  a  rule  it  yields 
only  to  training.  A  really  skilful  use  of  variety 
in  tempo  is  one  of  the  marks  of  the  finished 
speaker. 

Most  of  the  vocal  faults  which  are  pronounced 


VOICE  109 

enough  to  interfere  with  a  speaker's  effectiveness 
are  also  obvious  enough  to  be  easily  recognized. 
There  is  nothing  mysterious  about  them.  They 
call  for  sane  criticism  and  diagnosis,  followed 
by  regular  hard  work  for  a  long  period  of  time. 
You  cannot  reform  twenty-year-old  habits  in 
twenty  minutes  —  or  twenty  days.  But  with  a 
correct  diagnosis  and  reasonably  persistent  effort 
almost  any  bad  habit  can  be  overcome. 


Chapter   XIV 
ACTION 

THE  eye  is  quicker  than  the  ear,  and  hence 
a  better  road  to  primary  attention.  It  is 
easier  to  keep  awake  at  the  "movies"  than  in 
church,  quite  regardless  of  the  depth  of  one's  re- 
ligion. One  has  to  use  very  little  mental  effort 
to  watch  a  photoplay,  even  though  there  are  few 
explanatory  sub-titles;  the  visual  sense  is  so 
much  livelier  than  the  auditory  that  one  can  re- 
lax, mentally  and  physically,  and  yet  miss  very 
little  of  what  is  going  on. 

People  are  actually  more  sensitive  to  what  a 
speaker  does  than  to  what  he  says ;  and  no  doubt 
the  tremendous  vogue  of  the  motion  picture  is 
intensifying  this  condition  by  training  the  public 
to  read  actions  rather  than  words.  But  the 
strongest  appeal,  of  course,  lies  in  a  harmonious 
combination  of  actions  and  words;  which  is  why 
the  spoken  drama  still  remains  a  far  more  vital 
thing  to  those  who  patronize  it  than  the  motion 
picture  can  ever  hope  to  be.    The  problem  for  the 

110 


ACTION  111 

public  speaker  is  to  "  suit  the  action  to  the  word, 
the  word  to  the  action  "  ;  to  be  neither  a  phono- 
graph nor  a  windmill,  but  a  natural,  life-like 
human  being. 

Of  late  years  there  has  been  something  of  a 
prejudice  against  gesture  in  public  speaking,  oc- 
casioned no  doubt  by  the  absurdities  and  arti- 
ficialities of  gesture  as  taught  in  some  of  our 
elocution  schools  a  few  years  ago,  and  employed 
more  or  less  generally  in  church  sociable  "  reci- 
tations "  and  high  school  declamations.  People 
still  remember  with  horror  the  base  drum  and 
semaphore  arm  movements  with  which  a  youth- 
ful "  Spartacus  "  exhorted  imaginary  gladiators, 
to  the  delight  of  proud  parents  and  the  discom- 
fort of  embarrassed  audiences.  Better  no  gesture 
at  all,  they  say,  than  gesture  like  that! 

The  trouble  was  that  those  gestures  were  un- 
natural; but  it  is  not  true,  as  some  people  seem 
to  think,  that  all  gesture  is  unnatural. 

The  small  child  uses  plenty  of  gesture.  He 
does  more:  he  uses  action  in  the  broadest  sense. 
He  talks  with  his  whole  body  —  with  his  hands, 
arms,  feet,  head,  face,  mouth,  eyes,  eyebrows, 
shoulders,  and  voice;  and  while  certain  high- 
strung  persons  may  object  that  he  is  unrestrained, 
nobody  ever  accuses  him  of  being  unnatural. 


112    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

The  unnaturalness  is  acquired  later.  The  child, 
having  been  taught  to  restrain  his  exuberance, 
becomes  quiet,  stiff,  and  unexpressive.  He  for- 
gets how  to  make  natural  gestures,  and  does  not 
make  any;  or  he  makes  silly  little  abortive  ones 
from  the  wrist  or  elbow,  checking  them  before 
they  can  develop. 

His  case  is  not  hopeless,  for  as  I  said  in  the 
last  chapter  Nature  will  do  wonders  in  the  effort 
to  win  back  her  own  if  you  give  her  half  a  chance. 

But  the  elocution-school  method  of  gesture 
training  did  not  give  Nature  half  a  chance. 
Natural  gestures  depend  upon  a  highly  complex 
but  entirely  subconscious  coordination  of  mind 
and  body;  upon  the  "whole  mechanism,"  as  the 
psychologists  call  it,  working  without  thought  or 
effort,  as  in  the  case  of  the  small  child.  The  elo- 
cutionist sought  to  substitute  for  this  subcon- 
scious coordination  a  conscious  coordination 
learned  by  formal  drill  and  applied  from  the  out- 
side. He  classified  and  named  the  gestures,  prac- 
ticed them  carefully,  selected  the  proper  ones  for 
each  declamation,  and  memorized  them  with  the 
declamation  —  or  more  commonly  afterwards.  Of 
course  this  method  never  produced  naturalness 
or  sincerity.    How  could  it? 


ACTION  113 

"  Ah !  "  says  the  elocutionist,  "  but  it  would  if 
it  were  learned  thoroughly,  for  Art  conceals  Art !  " 

Nothing  can  conceal  that  sort  of  art,  not  even 
the  genius  of  a  great  artist.  The  saying  was  in- 
tended for  the  Fine  Arts,  and  it  means  simply 
that  good  artistry  is  less  obtrusive  than  clumsy 
artifice.  But  the  Fine  Arts  are  frankly  arts,  not 
realities ;  they  do  not  ask  or  need  concealment. 

In  a  normal,  natural,  genuine  function  of  life 
like  public  speaking,  where  everything  is  real,  and 
where  complete  sincerity  is  the  great  virtue,  you 
cannot  plaster  Art  on  from  the  outside  and  expect 
it  to  conceal  the  fact  that  it  is  Art.  You  cannot 
give  an  artistic  imitation  of  public  speaking  and 
fool  people  —  actually  deceive  them  —  into  think- 
ing it  is  real ;  not  unless  you  are  a  born  liar.  The 
only  technique  than  can  possibly  be  helpful  and 
at  the  same  time  sincere  and  genuine,  is  that 
which  is  developed  from  the  inside  out. 

The  speaker  must  have  something  to  say.  He 
must  feel  the  urge  to  say  it.  And  then  he  must 
yield  not  merely  his  voice  but  his  whole  body  to 
the  task  of  saying  it. 

The  small  child  does  so.    Therefore  it  is  natural. 

If  the  older  person  tries  to  do  so,  and  yet  fails 
to  get  a  natural  response  —  if  his  body  does  not 


114    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

naturally  and  unconsciously  perform  the  neces- 
sary actions  —  it  is  because  he  has  in  some  way 
suppressed  his  body  through  restraint.  His  only 
recourse  is  to  remove  that  restraint ;  to  restore  the 
responsiveness  of  his  body  by  exercising  it  wisely ; 
and  then  to  forget  his  body  again  and  think  of 
what  he  has  to  say. 

I  have  said  that  his  case  is  not  hopeless,  that 
Nature  will  help  him  recover  his  childhood 
ability,  or  at  least  as  much  of  it  as  he  needs.  How 
then  shall  he  go  about  it?  By  way  of  answer  I 
offer  the  following  hints: 

1.  Let  him  strive  in  every  possible  way  to  increase 
the  pressure  from  within;  that  is,  to  so  concentrate 
his  attention  on  what  he  has  to  say  and  the  necessity 
of  saying  it  that  he  will  forget  himself  and  burst  the 
bonds  of  his  self-restraint.  He  can  do  this  best  by 
engaging  in  arguments  and  discussions,  by  speaking 
of  things  he  is  really  concerned  about,  by  allowing 
himself  to  grow  enthusiaptic  or  angry.  His  teacher 
can  help  stimulate  his  enthusiasm  by  giving  response 
to  his  thoughts  and  encouraging  the  discussion.  Once 
the  pressure  becomes  strong  enough  the  speaker's 
body  will  respond  by  some  kind  of  action,  at  least 
intended  to  be  expressive. 

2.  When  the  action  so  developed  is  expressive,  and 
when  it  does  not  distract  or  annoy  his  hearers,  it  is 
right;  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  teacher  to  let  hira 
alone.  Self-conscious  attention  to  things  that  are 
right  is  just  what  must  be  avoided. 


ACTION  115 

3.  When  the  speaker's  actions,  though  developed 
spontaneously  from  the  thought,  are  inadequate  or 
inexpressive  because  of  his  acquired  inhibitions,  the 
teacher  can  help  by  judicious  criticism  of  the  things 
that  are  wrong.  If  the  student  can  be  made  conscious 
of  his  worst  faults  but  unconscious  of  his  successes 
—  or  rather  of  the  means  whereby  he  achieves  suc- 
cess —  the  former  will  become  uncomfortable  and  the 
latter  comfortable,  and  he  will  eventually  learn  to 
follow  the  pleasanter  path. 

4.  If  the  student  is  seriously  and  persistently 
awkward,  he  should  strive  to  limber  up  his  body 
through  the  medium  of  good  exercises  —  fencing,  box- 
ing, medicine  ball  work,  and  setting-up  exercises,  in- 
cluding some  good  dancing  steps.  Such  exercises, 
taken  on  the  side,  will  do  more  to  teach  him  gesture 
than  all  the  gesture  drill  in  the  world. 

5.  If  his  chief  difficulty  is  a  strong  aversion  to 
gesturing  at  all,  the  same  treatment  will  help;  aided 
by  the  treatment  prescribed  to  increase  the  pressure 
from  within.  But  this  fault  is  not  so  common  as 
many  believe,  and  is  very  rare  in  those  who  have 
got  past  the  first  difficulties  of  nervousness  and  have 
begun  to  "  find  themselves  "  on  the  platform. 

Those  who  really  have  something  to  say  and 
the  urge  to  say  it  seldom  have  any  other  diflBculty 
with  action  than  the  one  that  Theodore  Roosevelt 
had ;  namely,  a  tendency  to  settle  into  one  or  two 
habits  or  mannerisms.  In  a  young  student  this 
fault  can  readily  be  corrected  if  the  teacher  will 


116    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

subject  him  to  judicious  criticism  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  him  self-conscious  about  his  manner- 
isms but  not  about  his  really  good  gestures.  The 
impulse  from  within  will  then  be  diverted  from 
the  mannerisms  to  the  more  genuinely  expressive 
actions.  The  only  danger  is  that  the  self-con- 
sciousness will  be  applied  in  the  wrong  place,  and 
the  good  gestures  checked;  to  guard  against  this 
the  wise  teacher  criticizes  external  things  spar- 
ingly, at  the  same  time  always  emphasizing  the 
thought. 

When  once  the  speaker  has  freed  himself  of  his 
false  mannerisms  and  acquired  inhibitions,  and 
has  something  urgent  to  say,  he  will  say  it,  not 
alone  with  his  voice,  but  with  the  expression  of 
his  face,  with  his  eyes  and  eyebrows,  with  his 
shoulders,  with  the  movements  of  his  head  and  of 
his  whole  body,  with  changes  of  posture  and  posi- 
tion, with  his  feet,  hands,  and  arms.  And  his 
audience  will  get  what  he  has  to  say  almost  as 
much  through  his  actions  as  through  his  words. 


Chapter   XV 
METHODS   OF   PREPARATION 

THE  first  questions  a  student  of  public 
speaking  asks  are,  "  What  shall  I  talk 
about?  "  and  "  How  shall  I  prepare?  "  I  have  de- 
ferred the  answers  until  now  because  they  depend 
in  part  upon  the  principles  which  we  have  been 
considering. 

In  general,  the  best  answer  I  can  give  to  the 
first  question  is,  "  Whatever  you  can  best  mo- 
tivate," and  I  refer  the  student  again  to  the  dis- 
cussion in  Chapter  IV. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  say,  "  Choose  something 
you  know  about,  something  that  interests  you, 
something  that  is  appropriate  to  the  occasion." 
That  is  just  what  the  speaker  outside  of  the  classr 
room  will  try  to  do  without  being  told.  But  it 
does  not  help  the  student  with  his  speeches  in 
class,  because  in  the  first  place  there  isn't  any 
particular  occasion,  and  in  the  second  place  after 
he  has  addressed  the  same  audience  a  number  of 

117 


118    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

times  he  begins  to  run  out  of  topics  that  he  is  in- 
terested in  and  knows  all  about  —  or  at  any  rate 
he  thinks  he  is  running  out  of  them,  which  has 
the  same  effect. 

In  class  most  students  show  an  almost  irresist- 
ible tendency  to  choose  informative  topics,  that 
is,  topics  upon  which  they  can  speak  with  an  in- 
formative purpose.  An  informative  purpose  pre- 
supposes some  motive  of  authority  on  the  part  of 
the  speaker  and  some  willingness  to  be  informed 
on  the  part  of  the  audience,  both  of  which  quali- 
ties are  apt  to  be  lacking  in  the  routine  work  of 
an  ordinary  college  class.  But  so  easy  is  it  for  the 
student  to  fall  back  on  some  ready  source  of  in- 
formation like  a  magazine  article,  and  then 
simply  relay  that  information  second  hand,  that 
the  average  student  will  do  so  rather  than  make 
the  necessary  effort  to  find  well  motivated  topics. 
Then  he  struggles  along  in  a  hopeless  effort  to  im- 
part information  that  he  really  has  not  got  to  an 
audience  that  does  not  want  it. 

I  have  not  said,  please  note,  that  a  student 
should  never  speak  informatively  in  class.  I 
have  merely  stated  the  fact  that  most  informative 
speeches  are  harder  to  motivate  than  speeches  in- 
tended to  impress,  or  convince,  or  actuate;  and 


METHODS    OF   PREPARATION      119 

that  a  speech   must  be   well   motivated   to   be 
effective. 

"-"There  are  obviously  two  ways  of  motivating  a 
class  speech.  One  is  to  select  a  fool-proof  topic 
that  motivates  itself;  which  is  the  hardest  way, 
especially  after  the  student  has  spoken  many 
times.  The  other  is  to  use  a  little  imagination  and 
ingenuity  in  order  to  motivate  a  topic  that  might 
not  carry  itself  without.  It  may  help  somewhat 
if  the  student  will  bear  in  mind  the  following  con- 
tributory elements  of  good  motivation : 

1.  Evidence  of  inside,  or  first-hand,  information  on 
the  part  of  the  speaker,  especially  if  rare  or  unusual. 

2.  Evidence  of  unusually  broad  and  deep  knowledge 
of  the  subject,  giving  the  impression  of  authority. 

3.  Evidence  of  enthusiasm  for  the  subject  on  the 
part  of  the  speaker,  tremendous  and  contagious. 

4.  Establishment  of  a  bond  of  common  interest  in 
the  subject,  uniting  speaker  and  audience;  it  may 
grow  out  of  the  nearness  of  the  subject,  or  its 
universality,  or  the  fact  that  it  has  been  discussed  be- 
fore in  the  same  company. 

5.  Evident  timeliness  of  the  subject;  its  obvious 
relation  to  some  current  situation  or  event. 

6.  Intrinsic  interest  of  the  subject,  which  I  put 
last  because  it  is  the  least  reliable;  intrinsic  interest 
is  not  an  absolute,  but  a  relative  thing,  and  many  a 
student  is  fooled  by  that  fact.  However,  allowing 
for  the  relativity,  subjects  do  differ  in  degree  of 
probable  interest. 


120    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

A  thoughtful  application  of  these  principles 
should  help  the  student  —  or  the  teacher  —  to 
pick  out  subjects  suitable  for  classroom  practice 
in  public  speaking.  By  way  of  supplement,  how- 
ever, I  offer,  in  Appendix  C,  a  list  of  topics  that 
have  been  used  successfully  in  class  speeches,  and 
that  will  serve  as  suggestive  examples,  if  nothing 
more. 

The  second  question,  "  How  shall  I  prepare?  " 
calls  for  a  qualified  answer.  No  system  of  prep- 
aration will  do  for  every  subject  and  every 
speaker. 

The  first  steps,  of  course,  are  fairly  obvious. 
One  must  master  his  subject  himself  before  he  can 
hope  to  present  it  to  others.  He  must  have  some- 
thing to  say,  and  he  must  have  a  great  deal  more 
than  he  does  say,  else  he  will  fail  to  show  the 
necessary  reserve  power.  All  this  means,  usually, 
reading,  study,  and  thought,  followed  by  com- 
position. 

The  best  method  ever  devised  for  the  gathering 
and  ordering  of  material  is  the  separate  leaf 
method,  whereby  the  speaker  or  writer  takes  his 
original  notes  on  small  slips  of  paper  of  uniform 
size,  using  a  separate  slip  for  each  idea,  and  then 


METHODS    OF   PREPARATION      121 

assembles  and  arranges  them  after  the  manner 
of  a  game  of  solitaire.  This  method  gives  the 
greatest  elasticity  of  rearrangement,  permits  easy 
addition  and  subtraction  of  material,  and  avoids 
duplication  of  effort.  Experienced  speakers  and 
writers  seldom  use  any  other. 

Apart  from  method,  there  is  one  principle  which 
the  speaker  must  observe  in  the  preparation  of 
material  if  he  is  to  attain  any  measure  of  success, 
and  that  is  the  principle  of  thorough  assimilation. 
The  process  of  absorbing  ideas  is  not  unlike  the 
digestive  process.  One  first  gathers  articles  of 
food  (ideas)  and  puts  them  into  his  mouth 
(memory) .  The  articles  may  be  of  many  different 
kinds  and  from  many  different  sources,  but  in  the 
process  of  digestion  they  are  gradually  mixed  and 
broken  down  through  the  agency  of  digestive 
fluids  (mental  associations  and  reactions),  until 
they  lose  their  original  identity  (authorship)  and 
become  a  single  homogeneous  mass  (composition). 
It  is  at  this  point  —  in  the  preparation  of  a  speech 
—  that  most  students  stop ;  they  have  digested 
their  thoughts  but  have  not  yet  assimilated  them. 
Food  that  is  digested  but  not  assimilated  is  simply 
foreign  matter  inside  the  body;  it  is  not  part  of 
the  man  himself.    So  with  thoughts.    One  may 


122    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

have  studied  them,  mastered  them,  composed 
them;  yet  they  are  not  one's  own  until  they  have 
been  absorbed  into  the  blood,  so  to  speak;  and 
they  are  not  fit  material  for  public  speaking  until 
they  really  are  one's  own. 

Such  are  the  inescapable  first  steps  of  prepara- 
tion. "  But,"  says  the  student,  "  how  shall  I 
prepare  my  thoughts  for  delivery?  Shall  I  write 
them  out  and  memorize  them?  Or  shall  I  write 
an  outline  and  memorize  that?  Or  shall  I  use  a 
few  notes  and  speak  extemporaneously?  " 

The  answer  is  that  he  should  use  the  method 
best  adapted  to  himself  and  to  the  occasion.  My 
advice  is  to  try  everything  at  least  once;  to  ex- 
periment and  choose  the  best;  but  to  experiment 
intelligently,  with  due  regard  to  the  advantages 
and  limitations  of  each  method.  Some  of  the 
more  obvious  of  those  advantages  and  limitations 
may  be  set  down  here  by  way  of  suggestion,  and 
the  student  may  find  others  for  himself. 

The  advantages  of  writing  out  and  memoriz- 
ing a  speech  are : 

1.  It  gives  the  best  control  over  details  of  language. 

2.  It  permits  economy  of  expression,  the  elimina- 
tion of  dead  wood. 

3.  It  insures  the  speaker  against  leaving  out  im- 


METHODS   OF   PREPARATION      123 

portant  points,  or  forgetting  what  he  intended  to  say 
—  provided,  always,  that  the  memory  does  not  fail. 
4.  It  provides  a  correct  text  for  record  or  publi- 
cation. 

The  disadvantages  are: 

1.  The  tendency  of  a  written  speech  to  sound  writ- 
ten; that  is,  for  the  writer  to  employ  the  construction 
and  phraseology  of  written  rather  than  spoken  Eng- 
lish —  his  writing  rather  than  his  speaking  vocabu- 
lary.^ Few  students  realize  how  different  written 
and  spoken  English  really  are,  not  only  in  vocabulary 
but  in  construction  and  general  style.  Spoken 
language  is  less  formal,  less  finished,  less  literary; 
it  contains  fewer  complex  and  periodic  sentences,  but 
more  simple  and  compound  and  loose  sentences;  it 
uses  fewer  strictly  grammatical  constructions  and 
more  purely  idiomatic  ones.  It  does  not  depend  upon 
the  written  word  alone,  but  leaves  much  to  be  con- 
veyed by  the  inflections  of  the  voice  and  the  actions 
of  the  body. 

2.  The  difficulty  of  thinking  when  one  is  so  busy 
remembering;  the  audience  feels  and  resents  the  sub- 
stitution of  a  memory  process  for  an  active  thinking 
process  on  the  part  of  the  speaker, 

3.  The  unreliability  of  the  memory,  and  the  fact 
that  when  it  fails  unexpectedly  one  is  stranded. 

4.  The  simple  fact  that  memorized  speeches  rarely 
show  thorough  assimilation. 

1  See  Chapter  XII. 


124    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

The  advantages  of  extemporaneous  speaking 
from  notes  or  outline  are: 

1.  It  is  spontaneous  and  genuine,  even  in  its 
failures. 

2.  It  sounds  like  speaking  rather  than  reading. 

3.  It  tends  to  make  the  speaker  ''  think  on  his 
feet  "  instead  of  trying  to  remember  what  he  thought 
yesterday  or  the  day  before. 

4.  It  permits  of  instantaneous  modification  or 
adaptation  to  meet  unexpected  conditions. 

The  disadvantages  are : 

1.  The  tendency  of  many  speakers  to  ramble,  wast- 
ing time  and  words  to  no  purpose. 

2.  The  difficulty  of  being  sure  that  nothing  is  left 
out  in  the  excitement;  that  the  speaker  has  really 
said  what  he  intended  to  say. 

3.  The  clumsiness  and  uncertainty  of  extemporane- 
ous language. 

4.  The  temptation  to  neglect  preparation  and  de- 
pend on  one's  "  gift  of  gab." 

5.  The  absence  of  a  text  for  record  or  publication. 

6.  The  difficulty  of  keeping  within  the  time  limit 
when  there  is  one  —  a  very  vital  matter,  about  which 
most  students  are  all  too  careless.  To  be  cut  off  be- 
fore one  has  reached  his  climax,  or  to  be  forced  to 
make  a  hasty,  lame  ending,  is  to  have  one's  speech 
utterly  ruined;  and  there  are  many  occasions  in  real 
life  when  one  is  allowed  only  so  many  minutes  to 
speak. 


METHODS   OF   PREPARATION      125 

It  is  clear  that  many  of  the  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of  both  methods  are  conditional; 
that  modification  of  method  may  increase  or  de- 
crease them.  Most  speakers  have  found  that 
some  sort  of  a  compromise  is  the  best  solution. 
For  example,  one  well  known  speaker  prepares  by 
actually  delivering  his  speech  orally  and  extem- 
poraneously to  an  imaginary  audience,  not  once, 
but  many  times,  until  he  has  it  whipped  into  such 
shape  as  to  remove  many  of  the  disadvantages 
of  the  extemporaneous  method.  Then  he  writes 
it  down,  polishes  it  with  a  blue  pencil,  and  finally 
memorizes  it  —  although  by  that  time  it  needs 
very  little  memorization.  Another  uses  the  same 
method,  but  improves  upon  it  by  having  a 
stenographer  take  the  speech  down  while  he  is 
actually  delivering  it  to  the  imaginary  audience. 
Both  escape  the  worst  disadvantages  of  both 
methods    and    preserve    the    most    important 

advantages. 
In  my  own  classes  I  do  not  think  I  can  attribute 

ten  bad  speeches  a  year  to  thorough  preparation 
by  the  wrong  method;  but  I  can  attribute  twice 
that  number  every  week  to  inadequate  prepara- 
tion. The  worst  faults  of  the  memorized  speech 
show  up  most  clearly  in  the  speech  that  is  only 


126    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

half  memorized  —  and  not  half  assimilated.  The 
worst  faults  of  the  extemporaneous  method  show 
up  most  in  the  speech  that  is  extemporaneous  in 
thought  as  well  as  in  text.  Thorough  prepara- 
tion by  any  method  will  remove  half  the  faults 
of  that  method.  Wise  adaptation  to  circum- 
stances will  remove  the  other  half. 

One  common  fault  in  preparation  irrespective 
of  method  deserves  special  mention,  because  it  is 
due  less  to  laziness  than  to  a  natural  error  of 
judgment.  That  is  the  habit  of  preparing  the 
first  part  of  the  speech  too  well  at  the  expense  of 
the  last  part.  Nearly  everybody  falls  into  this 
error.  The  student  would  do  well  to  drill  into 
his  head  the  golden  maxim :  "  Prepare  thoroughly 
the  last  part  of  a  speech  and  the  first  part  will 
prepare  itself." 

One  more  suggestion  about  preparation  — 
which  applies  to  many  things  besides  prepara- 
tion  —  and  I  have  finished. 

Let  the  student  remember  that  the  best  way 
to  work  out  his  thoughts  for  effective  public 
speaking  is  by  talking  them  over  with  somebody 
else.  He  cannot  prepare  his  speeches  and  he  can- 
not prepare  himself  by  sulking  in  a  corner.  Speak- 
ing is  not  an  individual  but  a  communal  func- 


METHODS    OF   PREPARATION      127 

tion.  There  may  be  human  activities  that  can 
be  learned  in  a  hermitage  through  solitary  medi- 
tation, but  public  speaking  is  not  one  of  them. 
If  the  student  is  timid  and  afraid  to  meet  people, 
his  first  task  is  to  overcome  that  feeling  in  every- 
day life.  To  communicate  effectively  with  other 
men  he  must  know  other  men,  and  he  must  get 
used  to  the  feeling  of  having  them  know  hhn. 
To  develop  a  thought  most  effectively  for  sharing 
with  others  he  must  seek  the  reactions  of  others 
to  that  thought.  And  to  perfect  himself  in  the 
useful  art  that  is  expanded  conversation,  he  must 
expand  himself  through  conversation. 


APPENDIX  A 

VOCAL  EXERCISES 

General  Instructions.  —  The  exercises  listed  below 
are  few  in  number,  but  are  carefully  selected  to  correct 
the  commonest  faults  which  are  capable  of  correction 
by  such  means. 

Do  not  attempt  to  do  all  the  exercises,  but  select  — 
preferably  with  the  aid  of  a  competent  teacher  —  the 
particular  ones  which  seem  to  fit  your  individual  case. 
Practice  them  carefully  at  least  once  a  day,  five  or  ten 
minutes  at  a  time.  Always  stop  and  rest  at  the  first 
sign  of  dizziness  or  fatigue.  Never  persist  in  an  exer- 
cise that  gives  you  a  sense  of  strain  or  discomfort, 
especially  in  the  throat;  if  you  cannot  find  out  what 
is  wrong  seek  help  of  someone  who  can.  The  presence 
of  strain  in  the  throat  is  a  sure  sign  that  harm,  not 
good,  is  being  done. 

Practice  when  you  are  in  the  mood  for  relaxation, 
yet  are  not  physically  fatigued.  Have  the  window 
open,  if  possible;  at  any  rate  avoid  badly  vitiated 
atmosphere.  Stand  erect,  but  with  an  easy  natural 
posture,  free  from  stiffness.  Try  to  cultivate  a  sense 
of  freedom  and  exhilaration  in  doing  the  exercises. 
Do  not  think  of  the  anatomy  of  the  throat.  Remem- 
ber that  in  correct  voice  production  one  is  uncon- 
scious of  the  throat.  If  you  must  strain  something, 
strain  the  heavy  muscles  about  the  waistline. 

129 


130    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

If  you  happen  to  catch  a  cold  or  sore  throat,  keep 
up  the  breathing  exercises,  but  omit  the  exercises  in 
vocahzation,  or  such  of  them  as  cause  you  any  dis- 
comfort. Avoid  abuse  of  the  voice  at  all  times; 
do  not  shout  yourself  hoarse,  or  sing  beyond  your 
range,  or  sing  falsetto.  Remember  that  a  few  brief 
exercises  cannot  compete  with  hours  and  hours  of 
daily  abuse.  Endeavor  always  to  build  up  a  healthy, 
vigorous  body;  good  speaking  voices  are  seldom  found 
in  individuals  of  poor  physique. 

No  matter  what  other  exercises  you  do,  always  begin 
with  No.  1,  and  end  with  No.  2. 

I.   BREATHING   EXERCISES 

Note.  —  The  chief  qualities  to  work  for  in  breath- 
ing are  fullness  and  freedom.  The  reactions  to  guard 
against  are  dizziness  and  fatigue.  Because  the  lungs 
have  no  motive  power  of  their  own,  but  are  actuated 
by  muscles  around  and  below  them,  you  are  often 
taught  that  correct  breathing  is  done  not  with  the 
lungs  but  with  the  diaphragm.  So  far  as  sensation 
goes,  breathing  is  done  with  the  lungs,  all  parts  of  the 
lungs,  including  the  much  neglected  lower  parts.  By 
a  curious  trick  of  nature  you  feel,  when  you  inhale 
correctly,  as  if  the  air  came  up  through  your  body 
instead  of  down  through  your  throat.  But  it  is  as 
natural  to  think  of  breathing  with  the  lungs  as  to 
think  of  blowing  a  fire  with  a  bellows, 

1.  Exercise  to  wash  out  the  lungs. — Exhale  slowly, 
bending  forward  from  the  waist  with  the  arms  ex- 
tended towards  the  toes  and  the  shoulders  rounded  so 
as  to  compress  the  lungs  and  force  the  air  out.   Empty 


APPENDIX   A  131 

the  lungs  as  completely  as  possible  without  discomfort. 
Inhale  to  full  capacity  as  you  come  back  to  the  erect 
position.    Repeat  three  times. 

2.  Relaxation  exercise.  —  Inhale  deeply,  raising 
the  arms  over  the  head.  Relax,  and  exhale  slowly, 
simulating  a  hearty  but  silent  yawn,  and  letting  the 
arms  fall  limply  at  the  sides.     Repeat  three  times. 

3.  Simple  breathing  exercise.  —  Inhale  deeply, 
keeping  the  shoulders  back  and  raising  the  arms  over 
the  head  to  a  vertical  position.  Do  not  hold  the 
breath,  but  begin  exhaling  immediately  without  clos- 
ing the  passages;  exhale  slowly  and  evenly,  bringing 
the  arms  down,  and  stopping  when  the  body  feels 
relaxed.  Do  not  force  the  exhalation  or  empty  the 
lungs.    Repeat  six  times. 

4.  Exercise  to  lower  the  breathing  center.  —  Ex- 
hale, allowing  the  head  to  droop  forward  and  the  body 
to  hang  perfectly  limp  down  to  the  waistline.  Then, 
keeping  the  body  and  neck  still  limp,  inhale  deeply 
from  the  bottom  upward  (at  least  it  should  feel  so) 
until  the  force  of  the  air  straightens  the  body  and  neck 
and  lifts  the  head  up  to  an  erect  position.  Try  to 
feel  as  limp  as  a  toy  balloon;  let  the  air  do  the  work 
of  straightening  you  up,  not  your  muscles.  Repeat 
six  times. 

5.  Breath  reserve  exercise.  —  Inhale  deeply.  Ex- 
hale partially,  letting  only  about  one  third  of  the  breath 
go  and  keeping  the  rest  in  reserve.  Inhale  again  to 
full  capacity;  let  one  third  go,  inhale  again,  and  repeat 
six  times.  Rest  a  few  seconds  and  repeat  again  six 
times. 

6.  Breath  capacity  exercise.  —  Fill  the  lungs  by 
inhaling  a  little  air  at  a  time  in  a  succession  of  quick 


132    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

jerks,  packing  the  lungs  tight  after  each  jerk,  and  let- 
ting no  air  escape.  When  the  lungs  are  full,  close  the 
valve,  so  to  speak,  and  hold  the  air  for  about  five 
seconds.  Then  release  it  suddenly  and  relax.  Rest 
before  repeating.    Repeat  six  times. 

7.  Breath  control  exercise.  —  Inhale  in  a  succes- 
sion of  quick  jerks  as  in  Exercise  6,  but  avoid  packing 
the  air  after  each  jerk,  that  is,  avoid  closing  the  valve 
in  the  throat.  Hold  the  air  instead  by  controlling 
from  the  center  of  the  body,  and  as  soon  as  the  lungs 
are  full  begin  exhaling  slowly  and  evenly  as  in  Exer- 
cise 3.    Rest  before  repeating.    Repeat  six  times. 

8.  Abdominal  exercise. —  (To  strengthen  the  ab- 
dominal muscles  and  associate  them  with  breath  con- 
trol.) Strain  the  muscles  about  and  above  the  waistline 
as  if  trying  to  burst  a  tight  corset;  but  be  moderate; 
the  object  is  not  to  induce  apoplexy.  Keeping  the 
muscles  tense,  inhale  as  deeply  as  you  can  with  com- 
fort, exhale,  and  repeat  three  or  four  times.  At  the 
first  hint  of  dizziness,  stop,  relax,  and  rest.  Then 
repeat. 

9.  Diaphragm  exercise.  —  (To  limber  up  the  dia- 
phragm and  stimulate  the  lower  lobes  of  the  lungs.) 
Take  a  moderately  full  breath;  then  using  the  nasal 
passages  only  inhale  and  exhale  rapidly  and  repeatedly 
like  a  dog  panting.  At  the  first  hint  of  dizziness, 
stop,  relax,  and  rest.    Then  repeat. 

10.  Expulsive  exercise.  —  (To  assist  in  developing 
force  of  utterance.)  Inhale  deeply,  then  instantly  expel 
the  breath  on  the  sound  of  H.  Be  forceful  within 
reason,  but  do  not  turn  yourself  inside  out.  Do  not 
attempt  to  empty  the  lungs  completely.  Be  sure  that 
the  lower  portion  of  the  lungs  plays  a  part  in  the 


APPENDIX   A  133 

expulsion,  and  that  you  feel  the  muscular  activity 
more  at  the  waistline  than  at  the  shoulders  and  neck. 
Repeat  six  times. 

11.  Breath  economy  exercise.  —  Inhale  deeply.  Pre- 
pare to  exhale  on  the  sound  of  H;  then  exhale  so 
slowly  that  the  sound  is  practically  inaudible.  Seek 
to  make  the  exhalation  very  even,  smooth,  and  gentle; 
so  gentle  that  it  will  not  extinguish  a  Hghted  match. 
Avoid  all  strain,  and  do  not  empty  the  lungs  beyond 
the  point  of  relaxation.  Regulate  by  muscular  con- 
trol from  the  center  of  the  body,  and  not  by  squeezing 
the  throat.    Repeat  six  times. 

II.   EXERCISES  IN  VOCALIZATION 

Note.  —  Correct  vocalization  presupposes  correct 
breathing,  and  depends  also  upon  freedom  from  throat 
strain  and  fullness  of  resonance.  With  the  aid  of  a 
piano  determine  your  natural  range  of  voice;  then 
strike  off  two  whole  notes  at  the  top  and  two  at  the 
bottom,  and  confine  all  your  exercises  to  the  middle 
portion  remaining  (unless  instructed  otherwise  by  a 
competent  teacher).  Choose  the  easiest  tone  of  all  as 
the  starting  point.  Be  easy  on  the  voice  at  all  times, 
avoiding  strain  and  abuse.  Do  not  shout  yourself 
hoarse  at  the  football  games,  unless  you  wish  to  make 
a  deliberate  and  perhaps  permanent  sacrifice  in  the 
interest  of  school  spirit.  Do  not  sing  beyond  your 
range,  even  in  fun.  Do  not  use  your  voice  when  you 
have  a  sore  throat,  and  remember  always  that  pain 
in  the  throat  is  a  sure  sign  that  harm  is  being  done. 

12.  Exercise  for  ease.  —  Inhale  deeply  but  lazily; 
open  the  mouth  wide,  and  yawn  prodigiously,  saying, 


134    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

Ah,  hah,  hoh,  hum!  with  freedom  and  abandon. 
Do  not  repeat,  but  finish  off  instead  with  Exercise  3, 
repeated  three  times. 

13.  Forwarding  exercise.  —  Speak  the  following 
sounds  naturally  and  in  the  given  order:  Oo,  oh,  aw, 
ah,  a  (as  in  at).  Repeat  ten  times.  Note  that  the 
mouth  tends  to  open  wider  with  each  sound  in  the 
series,  and  that  the  focus  of  the  tone  seems  to  move 
forward;  the  oo  feels  down  in  the  throat,  the  oh  in 
the  back  of  the  mouth,  the  aw  in  the  center  of  the 
mouth,  the  ah  in  the  front  of  the  mouth  just  back  of 
the  teeth,  and  the  a  almost  out  of  the  mouth.  When 
you  have  made  certain  of  this  feehng,  speak  the 
sounds  in  reverse  order,  striving  to  keep  the  tone 
forward  in  the  mouth  as  much  as  possible  without 
losing  the  quality  of  the  vowels.     Repeat  five  times. 

14.  Humming  exercise.  —  (To  assist  in  forwarding 
and  to  develop  head  resonance.)  Take  a  full  easy 
breath,  and  choosing  a  fairly  low  pitch  hum  a  full 
round  tone  on  the  sound  of  M.  Keep  the  tone  well 
forward  in  the  head,  so  that  the  bones  of  the  forehead 
and  upper  jaw  vibrate.  Keep  the  lips  lightly  closed, 
and  note  the  tickling  sensation  at  the  point  of  contact, 
caused  by  the  vibration.  Repeat  until  you  get  a  good 
tone  easily.  Then,  using  the  original  low  tone  as  do 
of  the  scale,  hum  a  series  of  simple  exercises  corre- 
sponding to  do,  re,  do;  do,  re,  mi,  re,  do;  and  so  on, 
one  note  higher  each  time,  but  not  beyond  your  range. 
Do  not  pronounce  the  syllables,  however;  keep  the 
lips  closed  and  hum  on  the  sound  of  M,  with  the  tone 
well  forward  in  the  head.    Repeat  twice. 

15.  Resonance  exercise.  —  Take  a  full  easy  breath, 
and  choosing  a  fairly  low  pitch  sing  the  syllable  mum 


APPENDIX   A  135 

rapidly  and  repeatedly  as  long  as  the  breath  lasts. 
Repeat,  one  note  higher  in  the  scale  each  time,  until 
you  reach  the  octave  above,  or  until  it  threatens  to 
become  uncomfortable.  On  each  repeat  start  rapidly, 
say  five  syllables  per  second,  and  slow  down  as  you 
near  the  end  of  your  breath;  but  keep  up  the  volume 
of  sound  until  you  stop  and  stop  soon  enough  to  make 
this  possible.  Try  to  feel  that  the  breath  comes  up 
through  the  body,  and  that  the  tone  is  produced  in 
the  front  of  the  head.  Try  to  develop  a  good  tone, 
pleasing  to  the  ear.  Above  all,  be  sure  that  there  is  a 
continuous  flow  of  sound  from  start  to  finish,  the  M 
being  carried  over  from  syllable  to  syllable. 

16.  Exercise  to  correct  breathiness.  —  Take  a  full 
easy  breath,  choose  a  comfortable  middle  pitch  and 
sing  on  Ah.  Sustain  the  tone,  applying  the  air  very 
gently,  and  using  as  little  as  possible.  Do  not  try  to 
sing  very  loud ;  aim  to  increase  the  purity  of  the  tone, 
just  as  a  flute  player  would  —  that  is,  by  appljdng 
just  enough  air  at  just  the  right  pressure,  and  wasting 
none.  When  you  succeed  you  should  get  a  full  clear 
tone,  with  good  carrying  power,  yet  with  so  little  ex- 
penditure of  breath  that  you  can  hold  a  lighted  match 
just  in  front  of  the  mouth  without  extinguishing  it; 
you  should  be  able  to  sustain  the  tone  for  twenty-five 
seconds  on  one  breath.  Repeat  six  times.  Try  a 
higher  or  lower  pitch  occasionally. 

17.  Exercise  to  correct  nasality.  —  Hum  a  middle 
tone  on  M,  well  forward  in  the  head;  then  alternate 
with  a  full  open  Ah  on  a,  continuous  flow  of  breath. 
Then  hold  the  Ah,  and  with  the  thumb  and  forefinger 
alternately  pinch  and  release  the  nose.  Note  the  vari- 
ation of  sound.     Now  change  the  quahty  of  the  Ah 


136    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

tone  until  the  pinching  makes  no  difference  in  the 
quality.  Practice  this  tone  until  you  get  it  easily,  still 
keeping  the  tone  forward  in  the  head,  however.  Fi- 
nally, practice  alternating  the  two  types  oi  Ah  tone 
ten  or  twelve  times.  (This  exercise  will  not  cure  all 
kinds  of  nasality,  but  it  will  help  the  teacher  diagnose 
your  case.  Do  not  fail  to  report  results  to  the 
teacher.) 

18.  Intonation  exercise.  —  (To  correct  the  habit  of 
talking  in  consonants  only;  helps  also  to  correct 
breathiness  and  harshness.)  Choose  a  common  expres- 
sion such  as  "I  am  very  pleased  to  make  your  ac- 
quaintance," or  "How  are  the  folks  at  home  today?" 
and  intone  it  —  chant  it,  half  sing  it.  Do  not  stick  to 
a  monotone,  but  use  a  simple  tune  or  melody  on  two 
or  three  easy  notes.  Change  the  tune  with  each  repeti- 
tion. Choose  a  different  expression  each  day,  varying 
the  selection  with  proverbs  and  with  bits  of  verse  in 
different  moods.  Seek  musical  rather  than  emotional 
effect  (Compare  with  Exercise  19).  Play  with  the 
selection.  Be  careful  not  to  strain.  Repeat  ten  times, 
and  on  the  last  repetition  come  back  to  a  normal, 
natural  inflection,  speaking  the  selection  as  you  would 
in  real  life. 

19.  Exercise  for  expressiveness  of  voice.  —  Select  a 
short  lyric  poem,  expressing  some  deep,  or  tender,  or 
hilarious,  or  violent  feeling,  and  read  it  aloud  several 
times,  aiming  to  throw  your  whole  soul  into  it.  Do 
not  be  afraid  to  exaggerate  a  little;  put  in  plenty  of 
"sob  stuff" — tear  the  passion  to  tatters.  Do  the 
exercise  when  you  are  alone,  of  course;  barricade  your 
door  and  cut  loose.  Choose  a  different  selection  each 
day;  run  the  gamut  of  emotions  from  extreme  pathos 


APPENDIX   A  137 

to  extreme  mirth;  but  keep  them  distinct,  and  know 
which  is  which.  Try  to  feel  the  emotion  in  each  case, 
deeply  and  sincerely.  Bring  the  tears  to  your  own 
eyes  by  the  sound  of  your  voice.  (Note  that  this  is 
not  advice  to  be  followed  in  public,  but  a  private 
exercise  for  unexpressive  voices.) 

20.  Pitch  correction  exercise.  —  Take  an  easy  sen- 
tence of  your  own  and  repeat  it  several  times,  speaking 
it  naturally.  Then  intone  it  in  monotone,  aiming  to 
preserve  the  same  average  pitch  as  in  the  spoken  sen- 
tence. This  is  difficult,  but  can  be  done  after  a  little 
practice.  Repeat  until  you  have  it.  Then  find  the 
key  on  the  piano  which  corresponds  to  the  pitch  of  the 
sentence.  Strike  the  key,  repeat  the  intoned  sentence 
several  times,  and  then  strike  the  key  below  (if  your 
voice  is  too  high)  or  above  (if  your  voice  is  too  low), 
and  intone  the  sentence  on  the  new  pitch.  Repeat 
several  times.  Then  speak  the  sentence  with  the  new 
pitch  as  an  average.  After  two  or  three  days  bring 
the  pitch  down  (or  up)  two  notes  instead  of  one. 
When  you  have  established  the  pitch  where  you  want 
it,  start  over  again  with  another  sentence.  (The  help 
of  a  teacher  is  almost  essential  with  this  exercise.) 

21.  Exercise  for  force  and  variety.  —  Shout  each  of 
the  following  syllables  vigorously  on  a  separate  breath: 
Hu-p,  hee,  hay,  haw,  hah,  hoh,  hoo.  Do  not  strain, 
however.  Then  take  a  sentence  of  expository  or  argu- 
mentative nature,  carefully  pick  out  the  words  deserv- 
ing of  emphasis,  and  speak  the  sentence  giving  exag- 
gerated force  to  those  words.  Give  greatest  force  to 
the  one  word  that  seems  to  be  the  key-word  of  the 
sentence.  Repeat  with  other  sentences.  Pound  the 
desk  or  lectern  with  your  fist  to  emphasize  your  shouts. 


138    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

III.  ARTICULATION  EXERCISES 

Note.  —  The  whole  secret  of  articulation  exercises 
is  in  doing  them  carefully  and  slowly  enough  for 
accuracy.  Think  of  the  meaning,  and  let  speed  take 
care  of  itseK.  Seek  frequent  criticisms  from  the  teacher, 
for  you  cannot  judge  your  own  articulation  satisfac- 
torily. Remember  that  you  must  know  how  a  word 
ought  to  be  pronounced  —  a  matter  of  vocabulary  — 
before  you  can  learn  to  enunciate  it  correctly.  If 
possible,  have  some  one  at  home  check  you  up  con- 
stantly on  both  pronunciation  and  enunciation,  es- 
pecially on  vowel  quality.  You  need  more  frequent 
reminders  than  the  teacher  can  give  you. 

Flexibility  Exercises 

22.  Speak  in  rotation  the  syllables  ee,  ah,  oo,  exag- 
gerating the  lip  movements  slightly.    Repeat  ten  times. 

23.  Speak  in  rotation  the  syllables  it,  ip,  ik,  dis- 
tinguishing them  clearly.    Repeat  ten  times. 

24.  Speak  in  rotation  the  syllables  are,  oh,  dee, 
exaggerating  the  lip  movements  slightly.  Repeat  ten 
times. 

25.  Speak  in  rotation  the  syllables  kew,  pee,  tee, 
distinctly,  with  exaggeration,  but  without  stiffness. 
Repeat  ten  times. 

26.  Speak  in  rotation  the  syllables  ell,  oh,  em, 
exaggerating  the  lip  movements  slightly.  Repeat  ten 
times. 


APPENDIX   A  139 


Enunciation  Exercises 

27.  Demosthenes'  exercise.  —  With  two  or  three 
small  pebbles  in  the  mouth  speak  a  fairly  long  sentence 
as  clearly  and  distinctly  as  possible.  Repeat  until  you 
have  mastered  the  sentence.  Choose  a  new  sentence 
each  day.  This  is  an  old  and  hackneyed  exercise, 
originally  intended  to  overcome  stammering,  but  it  is 
still  very  useful  for  all-round  improvement  of  enuncia- 
tion. The  principle  is  very  simple:  to  stimulate  the 
will  power  and  strengthen  the  control  by  increasing 
the  difficulty  to  be  overcome;  it  is  the  same  principle 
the  baseball  player  uses  when  he  swings  two  bats  just 
before  going  to  the  plate.  You  can  design  an  exercise 
on  this  same  principle  to  help  you  fight  almost  any 
bad  habit. 

28.  Exercise  to  correct  "mushy"  enunciation. — 
(Speak  the  following  as  distinctly  as  possible :  She  shuns 
the  seashore  since  she  saw  the  sea  shells  shining  in  the 
sun.  Repeat  ten  times.  Change  every  two  or  three 
days  to  a  new  sentence  involving  the  consonants  that 
tend  to  sound  mushy.  Aim  always  at  freedom  and 
clearness;  never  at  speed. 

29.  Exercise  to  correct  slurring.  —  Speak  the  fol- 
lowing as  clearly  and  distinctly  as  possible:  A  statis- 
tician protests  that  the  Constitution  has  been  too  fre- 
quently attacked.  Repeat  ten  times.  Change  every 
two  or  three  days  to  a  new  sentence  involving  the 
difficult  combinations  of  consonants  —  st,  ts,  pr,  fr, 
th,  kt,  skt,  dst,  str,  tr,  tl,  etc. 

30.  Exercise  in  finishing  sounds.  —  Speak  the  fol- 
lowing as  clearly  and  distinctly  as  possible:    Clayton 


140    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

kept  a  kind  of  cat,  and  Howard  asked  him  for  it.  Repeat 
ten  times.  Change  every  two  or  three  days  to  a  new 
sentence  involving  plenty  of  syllables  ending  in  t,  d,  k, 
etc. 

31.  Auxiliary  exercise.  —  With  the  aid  of  a  mirror 
—  or  better,  of  a  friend  —  practice  silent  enunciation 
and  lip  reading  a  few  minutes  every  day.  (Used  alone 
this  exercise  will  produce  exaggerated  lip  movements; 
but  used  judiciously  in  combination  with  others  it 
will  help  to  encourage  distinctness.) 

Pronunciation  Exercises. 

(To  correct  a  few  common  habitual  mispronun- 
ciations, only;  most  cases  of  mispronunciation  being 
matters  of  vocabulary.) 

32.  Exercise  on  long  u.  —  Speak  the  following  cor- 
rectly and  clearly:  To  assume  that  the  moon  is  the 
cause  of  lunacy  is  absolutely  ridiculous  and  supremely 
stupid.  Repeat  ten  times.  Change  occasionally  to 
another  sentence  involving  long  u. 

33.  Exercise  on  oi  and  er.  —  Speak  the  following 
correctly  and  clearly:  The  girl  did  boil  the  bird  in  oil; 
the  oily  bird  was  early  boiled.    Repeat  ten  times. 

34.  Exercise  on  r.  —  Speak  the  following  under  fre- 
quent criticism  by  the  teacher:  Nowhere  in  American 
letters  do  we  find  a  dramatist  worthy  of  comparison  with 
Shakespeare. 

35.  Exercise  on  th,  —  Speak  the  following  as  it  is 
spelled :  De  guns  tundered  troo  de  tick  of  de  fight,  and 
we  knew  dat  de  flag  was  still  dere.  Now  speak  it  cor- 
rectly: The  guns  thundered  through  the  thick  of  the 
fight,  and  we  knew  that  the  flag  was  still  there.  Repeat 
five  times  each. 


APPENDIX   A  141 

Note.  —  The  student  or  teacher  may  readily  devise 
similar  exercises  for  the  correction  of  other  faults  in 
articulation  so  that  no  more  need  be  offered  here.  In 
general  it  may  be  said  that  earnestness  of  effort  and 
deliberateness  of  manner  will  correct  almost  any 
fault  of  articulation  yet  discovered,  barring  only  those 
due  to  serious  physical  malformation  or  to  psycho- 
pathic conditions. 


APPENDIX  B 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  SUGGESTIONS 

I.    FOR   THE   FURTHER   STUDY   OF   PUBLIC 

SPEAKING 

Note.  —  The  following  does  not  purport  to  be  a 
complete  bibliography  of  speech  subjects;  it  is  merely 
a  list  of  two  or  three  of  the  best  books  now  available 
in  each  of  the  several  fields  most  closely  related  to  the 
student's  problem  of  self -training  for  public  speaking. 

In  Public  Speaking 

* 

Winans,  J.  A.      Public  Speaking 

The  best  comprehensive  work  on  all  phases  of  the 

subject. 
Phillips,  A.  E.     Effective  Speaking 

A  standard  work  on  the  content  and  composition 

of  the  speech. 
Woolbert,  C.  H.     Fundamentals  of  Speech 

A  scientific  analysis  of  the  speech  function  in  all 

of  its  phases;    indispensable  to  those  who  expect 

to  teach. 

In  Voice  Culture 

Lankow,  E.     How  to  Breathe  Right 

A  httle  book  of  principles  and  exercises;    very 
helpful. 

142 


APPENDIX   B  143 

Herman,  R.  L.     An  Open  Door  for  Singers 

A  book  of  fundamental  principles  which  hold  good 

for  speakers  as  well  as  singers;    few  books  state 

them  as  clearly. 
Curry,  S.  S.    Mind  and  Voice 

The  safest  and  sanest  of  the  comprehensive  books 

on  voice. 
Mosher,  J.  A.    The  Effective  Speaking  Voice 

A  recent,   smaller  book,   with  much  condensed 

information. 

In  Language  and  Vocabulary 

In  addition  to  regular  textbooks  in  composition  and 

rhetoric  the  following  are  suggested: 

Greenough  and  Kittridge's  Words  and  their  Ways  in 
EngUsh  Speech 

Femald's  Connectives  of  English  Speech 

Krapp's  Elements  of  English  Grammar 

Phj^e's  Eighteen  Thousand  Words  Often  Mispro- 
nounced 

Lomer  and  Ashmun's  Study  and  Practice  of  Writing 
Enghsh 

Roget's  Thesaurus  of  English  Words  and  Phrases 

Wilstach's  Dictionary  of  Similes 

In  Argumentation  and  Debate 

Baker,  G.  P.  and  Huntington,  H.  B.  Principles  of 
Argumentation 

The  standard  text;    a  little  difficult  to  read,  but 
excellent  for  study. 
O'Neill,    Laycock,   and   Scales.    Argumentation  and 
Debate 


144    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

The  old  Laycock  and  Scales  revised,  and  the  most 

readable  book  on  the  subject. 
Foster,  W.  T.     Argumentation  and  Debating 

A  good  all-round  book,  widely  used. 
Covington,  H.  F.     Fundamentals  of  Debate 

A  totally  different  treatment,  from  an  imaginative 

point  of  view. 
Maxcy,  C.  L.     The  Brief 

A  useful  study  of  both  legal  and  argimientative 

brief-drawing. 

In  the  Literature  of  Public  Speaking 

The  World's  Best  Orations  (10  vols.)  Ed.  by  D.  J. 
Brewer. 

The  World's  Famous  Orations  (10  vols.,  small)     Ed. 
by  W.  J.  Bryan. 

An  inexpensive  set  containing  most  of  the  great 
speeches  of  the  world,  some  abridged.  Very  few 
recent  speeches. 

Modern  Eloquence  (13  vols.)    Ed.  by  T.  B.  Reed. 

Another  large  set,  including  more  speeches  of 
recent  decades. 

Models  of  Speech  Composition  Ed.  by  J.  M.  O'Neill. 
The  only  satisfactory  one-volume  collection;  95 
complete  speeches,  ancient,  modern,  and  contem- 
porary. 

In  Allied  Studies  Directly  Useful  to  the  Student  of 

Public  Speaking 

Aristotle.     Rhetoric 

The  foundation  of  much  that  has  been  written 
since. 


APPENDIX   B  145 

Jevons,  W.  S.     Lessons  in  Logic 

The  best  known  text  in  this  subject. 

Coppee,  H.     Elements  of  Logic 

An  excellent  book,  clearer,  more  practical,  and 
more  readable  than  Jevons. 

Euclid.     Elements  of  Geometry- 
Two  thousand  years  old,  but  the  best  book  on 
the  subject,  and  highly  useful  to  the  student  of 
argumentation. 

Chauvenet,  Wm.    Treatise  on  Elementary  Geometry 
One  of  the  best  modern  works. 

James,  Wm.     Principles  of  Psychology 

A  famous  treatise,  full  of  knowledge  directly  use- 
ful to  the  speaker. 

Bassett,  L.  E.     Handbook  of  Oral  Reading 

The  best  book  on  a  subject  in  which  the  speaker 
should  be  proficient. 

The  Quarterly  Journal  of  Speech  Education.    Ed.  by 
C.  H.  Woolbert. 

The  one  important  periodical  on  public  speaking 
and  alUed  subjects,  and  indispensable  to  the 
teacher.  Published  by  the  National  Association 
of  Teachers  of  Speech,  R.  K.  Immel,  University 
of  Michigan,  Treasurer. 

IL   FOR  REFERENCE 

Note.  —  Only  a  few  of  the  most  important  reference 
books  are  here  listed,  together  with  a  few  concise  and 
inexpensive  volumes  which  the  student  may  wish  to 
place  on  his  own  shelves. 


146    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

Dictionaries  and  Encyclopedias 

A  New  English  Dictionary  (Oxford  Dictionary) 

The  largest  and  most  authoritative.    No  student 

can  afford  to  be  unacquainted  with  this  great 

work. 
The  Century  Dictionary  and  Encyclopedia 

The  second  best  dictionary,  and  the  best  American. 
Webster's  International  Dictionary 
The  best  one-volume  dictionary. 
Webster's  Collegiate  Dictionary 

One  of  the  best  in  desk  size. 
The  Concise  Oxford  Dictionary 

Inexpensive;   desk  size.    Abridged  from  the  New 

English  Dictionary. 
Encyclopedia  Britannica 

Too  well  known  to  need  description. 
New  International  Encyclopedia 

Inferior  to  the  Britannica  in  many  respects,  but 

a  little  more  evenly  balanced  and  more  inclusive. 

Handbooks  of  Allusion 

A  Reader's  Handbook  (Brewer) 

Dictionary  of  Phrase  and  Fable  (Brewer) 

A  Smaller  Classical  Dictionary  (Smith)  (In  Everyman's 

Library) 
A  Dictionary  of  Non-Classical  Mythology  (Edwardes) 

(In  Everyman's  Library) 
Cyclopedia  of  Practical  Quotations  (Hoyt) 
Familiar  Quotations  (Bartlett) 


APPENDIX   B  147 


Historical  and  Statistical  Information 

Ploetz,  C.     Manual  (formerly  Epitome)  of  Universal 
History 

The  world's  history  in  chronological  outline. 
Putnam,  G.  P.     Handbook  of  Universal  History 
Universal  Atlas  of  the  World 
Cyclopedia  of  American  Government  (3  vols.) 
Cyclopedia  of  Political  Economy  and  U.  S.  History 

(3  vols.) 
The  Statesman's  Year  Book  (annual) 
The  Anglo-American  Year  Book  (annual) 
The  World  Almanac  (annual) 
Who's  Who  in  America  (annual) 
The  Women's  Who's  Who  of  America 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography 

The  standard  biographical  dictionary  of  England. 
National  Cyclopedia  of  American  Biography 

The  American  counterpart. 
Lippuicott's  Pronouncing  Biographical  Dictionary 

A  smaller  general  work  (2  vols) 

Bibliographical  Guides  and  Indexes 

Publishers'  Trade  List  Annual 

Annual  price  list  of  American  publications. 
United  States  Catalog  of  Books  in  Print  (and  Supple- 
ments) 

A  permanent  list  of  contemporary  American  booka 
Reference  Catalog  of  Current  Literature 

A  similar  list  of  English  publications. 
Poole's  Index  to  Periodical  Literature 

Well  known  and  useful,  but  only  up  to  190Gr. 


148    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

Readers'  Guide  to  Periodical  Literature 

Has  replaced  Poole  in  recent  years;   name  recently 

changed  to 
International  Index  to  Periodicals 


III.  FOR  THE  GENERAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE 

SPEAKER 

Note.  —  The  titles  here  listed  are  intended  merely 
to  suggest  some  of  the  lines  of  reading  most  likely 
to  assist  the  student  in  the  sort  of  self-development 
without  which  a  man  has  little  right  to  claim  the 
leadership  of  thought  implied  in  public  speaking.  The 
regular  formal  textbooks  which  the  student  is  most 
apt  to  meet  in  his  various  courses  have  been  purposely 
excluded  as  taken  for  granted.  No  attempt  has  been 
made  to  cover  each  field  completely;  that  is  left  to 
the  textbooks.  The  books  mentioned  have  been  se- 
lected for  their  established  greatness,  or  for  their 
direct  usefulness  in  furnishing  thought-material;  either, 
or  both. 

For  Historical  Background 

Wells,  H.  G.     Outline  of  History 

Van  Loon,  H.     Story  of  Mankind 

Thucydides.     History  of  the  Pcloponnesian  War 

Plutarch.     Lives  of  Illustrious  Men 

Grote,  G.     History  of  Greece 

Gibbon,  E.     Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire 

Carlyle,  T.     The  French  Revolution 

Green,  J.  R.     Short  History  of  the  English  People 

McMaster,  J.  B.    History  of  the  American  People 


APPENDIX   B  149 


For  Scientific  Background 

Thomson,  J.  A.     Outline  of  Science 

Pearson,  K.     Grammar  of  Science 

Bacon,  F.     Novum  Organum,  and  Advancement  of 

Learning 
Max-Miiller,  F.     The  Science  of  Thought 
Darwin,  C.     The  Origin  of  Species 
Huxley,  H.     Man's  Place  in  Nature 
Haeckel,  E.     The  Evolution  of  Man 

For  Political,  Economic,  and  Social  Background 

Plato.     Republic 
Aristotle.     Politics 

Economics 
Machiavelli,  N.     The  Prince 
More,  Sir  T.     Utopia 
Rousseau,  J.  J.     The  Social  Contract 
Smith,  A.     The  Wealth  of  Nations 
George,  H.     Progress  and  Poverty 
MiU,  J.  S.     Liberty 
Spencer,  H.     Principles  of  Sociology 
Maine,  H.  S.     Popular  Government 
Bryce,  J.     The  American  Commonwealth 

For  Philosophical  and  Religious  Background    ^ 

The  Bible.         Analytical  edition  in  Everyman's  Li- 
brary. 
Plato.     Dialogues 
Aristotle.     Nichomachean  Ethics 
Poetics 


150    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

Spinoza,  B.  de     Ethics 

Locke,  J.     Letters  on  Toleration 

Paine,  T.     Age  of  Reason 

Drummond,  H.     Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World 

Nietzsche,  F.     Thus  Spake  Zarathustra 

Schopenhauer,  A.     Essays 

Lodge,  Sir  O.     The  Survival  of  Man 

James,  Wm.     Human  Immortality 

Maeterlinck,  M.     The  Great  Secret 

Chesterton,  G.  K.     Orthodoxy 

For  Literary  Background 

No  brief  list  of  the  world's  greatest  books  could 
possibly  satisfy  anybody,  even  the  compiler;  but  I 
challenge  the  student  to  read  the  twenty-five  here 
listed  (or  twenty-five  better  ones)  without  showing 
some  signs  of  literary  background. 

The  Bible,  King  James  Version 

Shakespeare's  Plays 

Homer's  Iliad 

Chaucer,  G.     Canterbury  Tales 

Bunyan,  J.     The  Pilgrim's  Progress 

The  Arabian  Nights 

Cervantes,  M.     Don  Quixote 

Fielding,  H.     Tom  Jones 

Defoe,  D.     Robinson  Crusoe 

Goldsmith,  O.    The  Vicar  of  Wakefield 

Bums,  R.     Poems 

Goethe,  J.  W.  von    Faust 

Boswell,  J.     Life  of  Johnson 

Scott,  Sir  W.     Ivanhoc 

Dickens,  C.    Tale  of  Two  Cities 


APPENDIX   B  151 

Thackeray,  W.  M.     Vanity  Fair 

Tennyson,  A.     Idylls  of  the  King 

Dumas,  A.     The  Three  Musketeers 

Hugo,  V.     Les  Miserables 

Stevenson,  R.  L.    Treasure  Island 

Eliot,  G.     Silas  Marner 

Hawthorne,  N.    House  of  Seven  Gables 

Poe,  E.  A.    Tales  of  Mystery  and  Imagination 

Meredith,  G.     Richard  Feveril 

Hardy,  T.    Far  from  the  Madding  Crowd 

IV    FOR  SUGGESTION  AND  SOURCE  OF 
MATERIAL 

Books  (other  than  fiction)  that  Have  Provoked 
Discussion 

Chesterton,  G.  K.     What's  Wrong  with  the  World 
Ferrero,  G.     Ancient  Rome  and  Modern  America 
Lodge,  Sir  O.     Raymond 

Roosevelt,  T.    Fear  God  and  Take  Your  Own  Part 
Thayer,  W.R.    Democracy:  Discipline:  Peace 
Bok,  E.     The  Americanization  of  Edward  Bok 
Mirrors  of  Washington  (Anonymous) 
Stoddard,  L.    The  Rising  Tide  of  Color 

The  Revolt  Against  Civilization 
Wells,  H.  G.     The  War  of  the  Civilizations 
Russell,  B.    Bolshevism:  Practice  and  Theory 
Rathenau,  W.     The  New  Society 
Lewisohn,  L.     Up  Stream 
Hutchmson,  H.  G.     The  Fortnightly  Club 
Sanger,  M.    The  Pivot  of  Civilization 


152    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 


Stimulating  Essays  and  Collections  of  Essays 

Emerson,  R.  W.     Conduct  of  Life,  and  other  essays. 

Eliot,  C.  W.     Training  for  an  Effective  Life 

Bennett,  A.     How  to  Live  on  Twenty-four  Hours  a 
Day 

Briggs,  Le  B.     Essays  on  College  Life 

Benson,  A.  C.     From  a  College  Window 

Huneker,  G.  G.     Iconoclasts 

Meredith,  G.     Comedy  and  the  Comic  Spirit 

Perry,  B.     The  American  Mind 

Chesterton,  G.  K.     Things  I  Saw  in  America 

Shaw,  G.  B.     The  Case  for  Equality 

Bok,  E.     Why  I  Believe  in  Poverty 

Lindsay,  B.  B.     The  Doughboy's  Religion 

Maeterlinck,  M,     Death 

Modern  Essays,  Ed.  by  Berdan,  Schultz,  and  Joyce 
Widely  varied,  thought-provoking  essays  by  many 
authors. 

Modern  Essays,  Ed.  by  Christopher  Morley 

Essays  for  College  Men,  Ed.  by  Norman  Foerster 

Same,    Second    Series,    Ed,   by   Foerster,  Man- 
chester and  Young 

Representative  Essays  in  Modern  Thought,  Ed.  by 
Steeves  and  Ristine 

Selected  Essays,  Ed.  by  C.  M.  Fuess 

Civilization  in  the  U.  S.,  Ed.  by  H.  E.  Stearns 

Modern  Novels  that  Have  Aroused  Discussion 

Hardy,  T.     Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles 
Butler,  S.    The  Way  of  All  Flesh 
Poole,  E.    The  Harbor 


APPENDIX   B  153 

Gissing,  G.    Demos 

Chesterton,  G.  K.    Manalive 

Sinclair,  U.     The  Jungle 

Wells,  H.  G.    The  Wife  of  Sir  Isaac  Harmon 

Lewis,  S.     Main  Street 

Hutchinson,  A.  S.  M.    If  Winter  Comes 

Churchill,  W.    The  Inside  of  the  Cup 

Galsworthy,  J.     The  Forsyte  Saga 

Dos  Passos,  J.  R.     Three  Soldiers 

Fitzgerald,  F.  S.    The  Beautiful  and  Damned 

Stribling,  T.  S.     Birthright 

Modern  Plays  that  Have  Aroused  Discussion 

Ibsen,  H.    The  Doll's  House,  Pillars  of  Society,  Ghosts 
Shaw,   G.   B.    Man   and   Superman,    The    Doctor's 

Dilemma 
Jones,  H.  A.     Michael  and  His  Lost  Angel 
Barrie,  J.  M.     The  Admirable  Crichton,  Mary  Rose 
Bennett,  A.     Milestones 
Mitchell,  L.     The  New  York  Idea 
Houghton,  S.     Hindle  Wakes 
Ficke,  A.  D.     Mr.  Faust 

Galsworthy,  J.    Strife,  Justice,  The  Skin  Game 
Barker,  G.    The  Madras  House 
Glaspell,  S.     Inheritors 

Tarkington,  B.  and  Wilson,  H.  L.    The  Gibson  Upright 
Dane,  C.     A  Bill  of  Divorcement 
Molnar,  F.     The  Devil,  Liliom 
O'Neill,  E.    The  Emperor  Jones,  Anna  Christie,  The 

Hairy  Ape 


154    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

Poems  that  Suggest  Ideas  for  Discussion 

Wordsworth,  W.     Ode  on  Intimations  of  Immortality 
Tennyson,  A.     Locksley  Hall 
Whitman,  W.     Leaves  of  Grass 
Thompson,  F.    The  Hound  of  Heaven 
Hardy,  T.    Wessex  Poems 
Frost,  R.     North  of  Boston 
Masters,  E.  L.     Spoon  River  Anthology 
Noyes,  A.     What  Grandfather  Said,  Five  Criticisms, 
Touchstone  on  a  Bus,  A  BaUad  of  the  Easiest  Way 

Periodicals 

Note.  —  Articles  not  yet  published  in  book  form 
have  been  excluded  from  all  the  above  hsts;  yet  many 
of  the  best  suggestions  for  speeches  are  to  be  found 
in  such  articles.    For  that  reason  the  student  is  urged 
to  keep  posted  on  the  contents  of  all  current  periodi- 
cals.   The  following  are  especially  useful : 
The  Congressional  Record.    The  one  completely  un- 
biased and  uncensored  publication;   published  daily 
by  the  Government;    full  of  basic  material  on  all 
current  topics  of  national  scope. 
The  Literary  Digest.     An  impartial  weekly  review  and 

pool  of  press  opinion. 
Review  of  Reviews.     An  old-established  monthly  re- 
view. 
The  Christian  Science  Monitor.    A  newspaper  that 
tries  to  be  national  in  scope  and  balanced  in  interest. 
Current    Opinion.     Another    monthly    review,    with 

special  articles. 
The   Outlook.     A  review,   but  with  editorial   policy 
and  special  articles. 


APPENDIX   B  155 

The   Atlantic    Monthly.      A   treasury   of   thoughtful 

articles. 
The  Dial.     A  liberal  forum,  with  a  literary  bent. 
The  New   Republic.     A   discussion   paper   appealing 

especially  to  discontented  intellectuals. 
The  Nation.     Another. 
The  American  Magazine.     Exactly  opposite  in  spirit. 


APPENDIX  C 

TOPIC   SUGGESTIONS 
General 

1.  Current  events,  and  current  discoveries  in  art, 
science,  and  philosophy,  offer  of  course  the  most  pro- 
lific sources  of  material  for  class-room  speeches;  and 
the  best  way  to  keep  in  touch  with  them  is  through 
the  daily  newspapers  and  the  periodicals  (See  Appen- 
dix B).  Since  the  interest  in  current  topics  is  usually 
more  or  less  temporary  they  have  been  excluded  from 
the  list  of  topics  noted  below. 

2.  Campus  topics  are  useful  for  short  speeches,  but 
the  student  is  cautioned  against  the  all-but-universal 
error  of  taking  campus  topics  too  lightly  and  neglect- 
ing preparation. 

3.  Discussions  in  other  courses  suggest  many  topics, 
with  the  additional  advantage  that  they  permit  the 
student  to  economize  labor  and  do  more  intensive  work 
by  preparing  two  lessons  at  once. 

4.  The  study  of  public  speaking  itself  offers  ma- 
terial for  speeches  on  the  seminar  plan.  For  example, 
a  student  may  take  the  subject  of  "Attention,",  and 
after  reading  Chapter  V.  of  this  book  and,  let  us  say, 
the  chapters  on  "Attention"  in  James'  Principles  oj 
Psychology  and  Winans'  Public  Speaking,  formulate 
and  express  his  own  opinions  on  the  subject. 

156 


APPENDIX   C  157 

5.  The  impulse  to  answer  others,  cither  to  improve 
upon  what  they  have  said  or  to  refute  them,  not  only 
provides  good  topics,  but  tends  to  arouse  the  student, 
make  him  less  self-conscious,  and  develop  his  sense  of 
communication. 

Specific 

The  following  one  hundred  topics  of  successful  class 
speeches  have  been  selected  with  httle  regard  to  bal- 
ance and  proportion,  but  with  an  eye  to  their  possible 
suggestiveness;  the  student  will  find  them  chiefly  use- 
ful as  starting-points  for  further  thought.  The  simple 
device  of  taking  a  topic  from  the  hst  and  changing 
the  pm'pose  or  the  point  of  view  will  sometimes  give 
the  student  just  what  he  wants;  or  the  equally  simple 
one  of  keeping  the  purpose  and  changing  the  scope  of 
the  subject.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  topics  are 
classified  according  to  purpose  as  purposes  are  classi- 
fied in  Chapter  III. 

1.  To  inform 

A  Bit  of  Inside  Information 

By  a  student  who  has  figured  in  an  unpublished 
army  scandal. 

The  French  Battlefields,  Four  Years  After 

By  a  former  soldier  just  back  from  a  tour  of 
France. 

Some  Little  Known  Facts  About  the  Bible 

By  a  divinity  student  who  has  been  making  a 
special  study  of   the  history  of    the  Scriptm-es. 

Ectoplasm 

A  summary  of  the  evidence  regarding  this  strange 
phenomenon,  by  a  student  interested  in  spiritual- 
ism. 


158    HANDBOOK    OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

How  a  Modern  Hotel  Is  Run 

By  a  student  whose  father  owns  one. 
The  Swiss  System  of  Military  Training 

The  facts  about   it,   by   a   student   of    military 

science. 
The  Truth  About  Our  Wars 

By  an  iconoclast  who  has  been  reading  records 

and  statistics. 
The  Scientific  Evidence  in  Support  of  a  BeUef  in 
Immortality 

An  impartial,  impersonal  summary  of  the  known 

facts. 

2.  To  enlighten 

What  Is  Education? 

An  explanation  of  one  student's  understanding  of 

the  term. 
What  Is  Freedom  of  Speech? 

By  a  law  student  familiar  with  court  decisions  in 

the  matter. 
Lawful  and  Unlawful  Radicalism 

An  attempt  to  define  the  difference,  by  another 

law  student. 
Aristotle's  Theories  of  Government 

An  explanation  of  a  most  interesting  point  of  view. 
The  Difference  Between  Socialism  and  Bolshevism 

By    an    ex-Socialist    who  is  also  a  student    of 

Russian  affairs. 
The  New  Movement  in  the  Art  of  the  Theatre 

An  attempt  to  explain  Gordon  Craig  and  some  of 

his  disciples. 
Aristotle's  Theory  of  Tragic  Poetry 

An  analysis  of  the  tragic  beauty  in  Shakespeare's 


APPENDIX   C  159 

plays  in  terms  of  the  basic  principles  laid  down  by 

the  great  Athenian. 
The  Theory  of  Evolution 

What  it  means  and  what  it  does  not  mean. 
National  Evolution 

An  analysis  of  Bernhardi's  doctrine. 
Atheism  and  Agnosticism  Distinguished 

By  an  agnostic  who  declines  to  be  considered  an 

atheist. 
The  Religion  of  the  Red  Man 

By  a  student  who  has  lived  among  the  Chippewas. 
The  Final  Solution  of  the  Liquor  Problem 

Explaining  a  new  and  original  plan. 
Democracy  in  Industry 

Explanation  of  a  plan  to  end  strikes. 
The  German  Idea  of  Education 

By  a  student  who  has  been  to  school    in  four 

countries. 
Psychoanalysis  and  Dreams 

By  a  disciple  of  Freud. 

3.  To  convince 

How  Germany  Won  the  War 

By  a  student  who  tliinks  she  did. 
Should  the  U.  S.  Adopt  a  System  of  Universal  Military 
Trauiing? 

By  an  admirer  of  the  Swiss  System. 
Are  We  an  Improvement  on  Our  Fathers,  Morally? 

By  a  young  man  who  thinks  not. 
Have  the  Labor  Unions  Outgrown  Their  Usefulness? 

By  a  former  sympathiser   whose  sympathy  has 

been  alienated. 


160    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

Should  the  Publication  of  Foreign  Language  News- 
papers in  the  U.  S.  Be  Prohibited? 

By  a  student  from  Milwaukee. 
Should  Immigration  Be  Restricted  by  a    Personnel 
Test? 

By  one  who  has  observed  the  failure  of  the  "Melt- 
ing Pot." 
Should  the  U.  S.  Adopt  a  Responsible  Cabinet  Form 
of  Government? 

By  an  admirer  of  the  British  sj^stem,  in  disgust 

at  many  deadlocks  at  Washington. 
Why  I  Agree  with  Nietzsche 

By  a  believer  in  natural  evolution. 
In  Defense  of  Machiavelli 

By  one  who  has  just  read  "The  Prince." 
College  Spirit,  Real  and  Sham 

An  effort  to  prove  that  true  loyalty  is  not  to  be 

measured  in  terms  of  shouting. 
Can  Our  Movie  Stars  Act? 

By  one  who  speaks  feelingly  in  the  negative. 
Will  Incomes  Be  Equal  in  Utopia? 

An  attempt  to  refute  Bernard  Shaw's  "Case  for 

Equality." 
Is  the  Doctrine  of  Individual  Liberty  Obsolete? 

By  one  who   deplores  the   rising  tide   of  pater- 
nalism. 
Does  History  Always  Repeat  Itself? 

An  attempt  to  prove  the  old  saying  a  fallacy. 
The  Case  Against  Democracy 

By  one  who  has  been  reading  Maine's  "Popular 

Government." 
The  Evils  of  Vocational  Education 

By  one  who  believes  in  democracy. 


APPENDIX    C  161 

Shall  We  Scrap  the  Three  R's? 

By  a  school  teacher,  disgusted  with  educational 

fads. 
The  Evils  of  Co-education 

By  a  student  who  would  prefer  college  as  Father 

used  to  describe  it. 
Should  Examinations  Be  Abolished? 

An  attempt  to  prove  that  they  are  unfair  and 

useless. 
Should  Education  Be  Made  Easy? 

By  a  teacher  who  thinks  the  Montessori  method 

responsible  for  widespread  debility  of  mind  and 

character. 
Shall  We  Abolish  the  Study  of  Latin  and  Greek? 

An  argument  for  the  negative  by  a  teacher  of 

English. 
Should  Private  Schools  Be  Abolished? 

By  a  militant  enemy  of  aristocracy. 
Is  Mass  Education  a  Failure? 

By  an  exponent  of  intellectual  aristocracy. 
Is  Advertising  Immoral? 

By  an  ethical  theorist  whose  pet  aversion  is  waste. 
Censorship  and  Public  Morals 

By  one  who  thinks  there  should  be  more  and 

sterner  censorship, 
A  Defense  of  Popular  Music 

By  one  who  does  not  like  it,  but  believes  in  per- 
sonal liberty. 
In  Defense  of  the  Happy  Ending 

By  a  student  who  feels  that  life  itself  is  sad  enough. 
In  Defense  of  the  Realistic  Drama 

An  attempt  to  refute  the  arguments  of  Gordon 

Craig. 


162     HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

Peace  At  Any  Price 

By  a  pacifist  who  thinks  some  prices  too  high  to 
pay. 
Nationalize  the  Raikoads 

By  one  who  is  disgusted  with  both  labor  and 
capital. 

4.  To  impress 

Is  Europe  Dying? 

By  one  who  has  been  troubled  by  the  signs  of  a 

decaying  civilization 
The  Power  of  Organized  Minorities 

By  one  who  would  warn  us  of  a  menace. 
Roosevelt  in  Retrospect 

An  admiring  appraisal  of  his  achievements. 
Was  Sherman  Right? 

By  a  student  who  has  been  to  war. 
Barbarous  Homer 

By  a  pacifist  who  finds  the  Ihad  a  bath  of  blood. 
If  Christ  Were  Here  Today 

An  appraisal  of  our  civilization  in  terms  of  Christ's 

teachings. 
Patriotism? 

An  indictment  of  the  sham  variety. 
Soviet  America 

A  plausible  but  disturbing  prophecy. 
The  American  National  Failing 

By  a  student  who  thinks  it  is  complacency. 
The  Unhappy  Atheist 

By  one  who  has  been  reading  Hardy's  "Wessex 

Poems." 
The  Value  of  a  College  Theatre 

By  an  enthusiast  who  thinks  dramatics  more  edu- 
cational than  courses.  , 


APPENDIX    C  163 

The  Meaning  and  Value  of  Poetry 

By  one  who  believes  it  is  the  poet  who  perpetu- 
ates civilization. 

The  Menace  of  the  Movies 

By  one  who  is  disturbed  by  the  bad  ethics  of 
certain  fihns. 

The  Next  War 

A  prophecy,  by  a  student  of  mihtary  history. 

The  War  of  the  Classes 

By  a  student  of  Economics  and  Sociology. 

The  War  of  the  Races 

By  one  who  prophesies  the  doom  of  the  white  races. 

Henry  David  Thoreau 

A  lay  sermon  in  appreciation  of  the  hermit  philos- 
opher. 

The  Two  Bacons 

By  a  student  of  the  sciences  who  thinks  Roger 
Bacon  and  Francis  Bacon  the  leading  thinkers  in 
the  history  of  science. 

The  College  Man's  Rehgion 

By  a  Methodist,  who  has  read  Lindsay's  "The 
Doughboy's  Religion." 

American  Business  Ethics 

An  impressive  indictment,  by  a  former  real  estate 
salesman. 

The  Civilizing  Influence  of  the  Phonograph 

By  a  teacher  of  music  in  the  public  schools. 

English  Literature  and  Ideals  in  America 

By  one  who  thinks  them  the  fire  under  the  ''  Melt- 
ing Pot." 

What  We  Owe  to  the  British  Navy 

Our  national  existence  since  1870,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  speaker. 


164    HANDBOOK   OF   PUBLIC   SPEAKING 

5.  To  excite 

(Omitted,  for  reasons  explained  on  page  18) 

6.  To  actuate 

Vote  for  Smith  for  Class  President 

A  campus  campaign  speech. 
Send  a  Kid  to  the  Country 

An  appeal  for  funds  to  support  a  student  camp 

for  poor  boys. 
Support  the  Team 

A  plea  for  better  cheering  in  a  bad  season. 
Write  a  Letter  to  Bill  Jones 

A  plea  for  cheering  letters  for  a  classmate  in  the 

hospital. 
Get  Acquainted  With  the  Library 

By  one  who  has  discovered  that  "browsing"  is 

an  important  part  of  college  education. 
Know  Your  Own  Language 

By  a  teacher  of  etymology,  to  a  class  of  teachers. 
Be  Tolerant 

A  direct  appeal  for  fair  minded  consideration  of 

the  views  of  others. 

7.    To  entertain 

My  Trip  to  South  America 

An  interesting  account  by  a  student   who    has 

worked  as  a  sailor. 
Glycerine  and  Nitroglycerine 

Humorous  reactions  to  a  photoplay  of  tears  and 

terrors. 


APPENDIX   C  165 

Putting  It  All  Over  Grandma 

An  amusing  defense  of  the  modern  girl,  by  one. 
Liquor  in  Literature 

An  amusing  but  imposing  array  of  examples. 
Silly  Censorship 

By  a  "movie  fan"  who  has  been  suffering  from  it. 
What  Shall  We  Prohibit  Next? 

By  a  humorist  who  might  be  suspected  of  "wet" 

sentiments. 
Toddling  at  Teacher's  Apron  Strings 

By  a  student  who  can  laugh  at  his  own  lack  of 

self-reliance. 
Utopia  Up  to  Date 

A  satire  on  modern  theories  and  "isms." 
The  Best  Photoplay  I  Ever  Saw 

An  entertaining  discussion  of  it. 
Classics  that  Couldn't  Pass  the  Censor 

By  a  good-natured  soul  who  is  more  amused  than 

embittered. 
Some  Curious  Byways  of  Readmg 

An  entertaining  talk  on  books. 
Fads  and  Fancies  in  Education 

By  a  teacher  who  thinks  supervisors  most  amusing. 
Some  New  Things  Under  the  Sun 

An  interesting  mixture  of  humor  and  truth. 
My  Impressions  of  America  and  the  Americans 

By  a  Chinese  student. 
The  Greatest  Novel  Ever  Written 

By  a  student  who  has  just  been  reading  it. 
Should  Millionaires  Be  Abolished? 

By  a  student  who  is  one. 
The  Possibilities  of  Radio 

A  fanciful  dream  of  the  future. 


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